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CALL TO ACTION: At Mad Studies Events, we usually consider a piece of work - be it published 'peer reviewed' literature by our own Mad academics, or Zines, blogs, podcasts which develop our understanding and sharing of 'Mad Knowledge' that is being developed and too often hidden from sight. Most times this knowledge has fallen under the banner of activism and critique of current systems that severely disadvantage people whose mental health is poor, chronic or who are different to what is deemed the norm. Several times these discussions have led to us wanting to do something, but not doing so for various reasons - time, resource, energy. There is much discussion about funding presently. Why do big funders give funding to our 'allies' to do research on our mental health, or our 'involvement' in services, and not directly to our own academics, our own lived experience led organisations, people openly working in from an experiential lens within the discipline we have worked so hard to create? Why do these 'allies' then get to decide which service user led organisations or consultants they will allocate some of the funding to, what rates they will pay, and the decision making power they will have? Some allies may not ever hand over any funding to workers, activists or other people within the Mad Community, instead expecting their labour for free in the form of voluntary or expenses paid. This month our discussion will lead to a call for action - but what will that look like? A letter to funders? A petition? In the UK, we would need 100,000 signatures to get the question debated in parliament. This is a barrier in itself. How do we get people to listen, share power, money, time, resource and decision making with us? We are UK based, but our group attracts people from all over the globe - could we coordinate? For context, here are a few resources: ‘Widening cross-disciplinary research for mental health’: what is missing from the Research Councils UK mental health agenda? - D. Rose, P. Beresford, S. Carr: https://tinyurl.com/mr49yata The Politics of Service User Labour - L. Costa, L. Walter: https://tinyurl.com/2bmr8dwu Tweet by Tamar Jeynes: https://tinyurl.com/2ctef98z Tweet by Nev Jones: https://tinyurl.com/3a3fvfe2 Please book your FREE place so that we have an idea of numbers to expect and can send you details of the papers being considered and Zoom details. 2023 Dates: 3 Aug 7 Sept 5 Oct 2 Nov 7 Dec

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