Hearing Voices 20th anniversary festival conference a success

The Sleaford Hearing Voices festival on Friday May 16 saw a number of groups, organisations and services such as HAY Lincolnshire Community Mental Health and Wellbeing Transformation, Mindfilness Skills4Life, SHINE Lincolnshire and Sleaford Library take part, hosting stalls at the event which included a number of respected speakers.

Co-facilitator for the Sleaford group, Cathy McNulty, along with Chris Wood, said people had travelled from all over the county to take part as members of other hearing voices support groups, mental health poetry and philosophy groups, as well as nurses and experts from mental health services.

The day included talks, a music session and networking areas.

Chris Wood hosted a session about creating a blog and benefits for his mental health while Prof Mal Leicester led a discussion on ‘Leading a good life’.

Cathy said the day had been in the planning for a long time and was finally held at the New Life Conference Centre.

There are now Hearing Voices groups in Spalding and Lincoln too and so she said it was maybe time to recognise themselves as a Lincolnshire Hearing Voices Network.

The first local Hearing Voices Conference was in Leasingham Village Hall in the early 2000’s.

Cathy said: “There have been many since with great speakers who were willing to share openly about their life experiences and how a different understanding of hearing voices was the first steps in their recovery.

“Sleaford Hearing Voices Group began when I was working as an occupational therapist in the NHS community team in Sleaford. Having conferences was one thing, creating real change in services was needed. Chris came to the group, in the early days, and now for many years he is our group peer-facilitator. We have experienced many different homes over time and different ways of promoting our little group but one way or another we have kept this group going.”

Cathy said navigating through COVID-19 led the group to develop an audio WhatsApp group meaning they did not miss a single meeting whilst others were folding and closing overnight. “Quite an achievement where new members joined, and we learned different ways of enabling people to come to our group.”

Sleaford Hearing Voices Group meet on the second Friday of the month from 11am – 12.45pm at The Sheldrake Room in Sleaford Town Hall, Quayside House, Navigation Yard, Sleaford, NG34 7TW.

The contact numbers for the group are Cathy on 0752 8535648 and Chris 07895 971294. They support the group and are happy to tell you more about the group and meet you nearby for your first time.