Welcome
Welcome to the CAPS Independent Advocacy newsletter!
May 2025
Collective Advocacy under threat
As you may know from the last newsletter CAPS has been told by the Edinburgh Health and Social Care Partnership that they propose to withdraw funding from many of our Collective Advocacy projects. A number of participants in CAPS groups have been meeting to develop a response defending Collective Advocacy. Being true to Independent Advocacy they are coming together as a collective to fight for their own and others’ rights. Please help them. Please attend a public meeting about the proposed cuts that threaten Collective Advocacy and other mental health providers in Edinburgh.

Public meeting Monday 26th May, 5 to 7pm, Augustine United Church, 41 George IV Bridge, EH1 1EL. Register here: http://bit.ly/44xSPag 

You can read about the proposed cuts and how else you can help here. We’ve already gathered a lot of testimonials from people who will be affected by the cuts, thank you for sending them in. A couple of quotes are below, and all of the testimonials are available here.
“CAPS Collective Advocacy saved my life, gives me purpose, self-esteem and confidence in a supportive environment. I thought I was beyond help in those areas.”

“If CAPS were to end, I don't exaggerate when I say I would be devastated. I'd feel a terrible identity crisis without CAPS. I feel we make such a difference to others life's by sharing our experiences. I don't know what I am meant to do without collective advocacy. It is genuinely a lifeline for me.”
Sign the petition
If the cuts go ahead it could end services across the city and leave thousands of people without help. One really important thing you can do to help right now is to please sign this petition set up to save mental health services in Edinburgh.
'In our shoes' thank you for coming!
We want to say a big thank you to all those group members who delivered presentations and workshops at CAPS' ‘In our shoes: Independent Advocacy as education and innovation’ conference earlier in the month. Thanks everyone who attended as well, it was a great day with thoughtful presentations from people with mental health issues and group facilitators. Everyone who attended got to attend at least one lived experience workshop where they were learning directly from people with mental health issues. Some pictures from the day are below.
A photo of a CAPS staff member giving a presentation with powerpoint with four staff members seated at a table
The 'Can you hear us?' interviews
At the ‘In our shoes: Independent Advocacy as education and innovation’ conference people had the opportunity to listen to recordings of people with mental health issues speaking about lived experience and how they have been engaged in giving their views. The recordings were presented at a number of ‘listening stations’ in the conference hall. We’re now offering these recordings on our website. People with mental health issues started the project to make sound recordings at the People’s Conference in 2024. They chose the use of sound as a way to bring perspectives of people with mental health issues to life in a way that makes them very real. Now those people have directed the editing of the sound recordings and launched them at the conference. Listen here
Two pairs of headphones and a number of transcripts on a table
Out of Sight Out of Mind call for art, materials grants, and new for 2025

People who have experience of mental health issues are invited to submit an artwork to the 13th Out of Sight Out of Mind exhibition, which will be held at Summerhall in October 2025. If you wish, you can respond to this years’ theme Comfort & Disturb, but it is not a requirement as artworks can be about anything. In 2025, there are two options. As usual, you can submit your artwork, your way. Or you can join the Comfort & Disturb Canvas installation. We provide the canvas; you make your artwork on it! We will make a large installation with them at the exhibition. 

You can also apply for a materials grant to make your artwork, but you don’t have to apply for a grant to take part.
Materials Grant application closing date: 12pm (midday) on Monday 2 June 2025
Artwork Submissions closing date: 12pm Monday 7 July 2025 
Visit the website for more information and forms
Alternatively, get in touch with Pam the Arts as Advocacy Manager, E-mail: exhibition@capsadvocacy.org, Mobile: 07989402634

An artwork which is a book opened out with colourful paintings and patterns inside
Out of Sight Out of Mind Comfort & Disturb Installation 
This year there are two options to show art at Out of Sight Out of Mind exhibition. (Though, you can’t do both.) You can either, show your artwork, your way, as usual. Or you can join the Comfort & Disturb Canvas installation. We provide the canvas; you make your artwork on it! We will make a large installation with all the canvases at the exhibition. 

You can collect a canvas or join the in-person canvas session on Wednesday 9 July, 1-4pm, at St Martins Community Resource Centre. Booking required. 

Request a canvas or register for the session and more information here

Or get in touch with Pam at CAPS:
E-mail: exhibition@capsadvocacy.org 
Call/Text: 07989402634
Photos from the Discovery Session at Lothian Health Services Archive
CAPS Collective Advocacy Group Oor Mad History hosted a Discovery Session at the Lothian Health Services Archive in April. They helped researchers and the public understand materials related to mental health in the archive by drawing on their own lived experience. The event welcomed attendees to think about the new perspectives that lived experience can add to research, policy, and advocacy by engaging with personal stories.
A group of people discussing and looking at materials in the Lothian Health Services Archive
A group of people discussing and looking at materials in the Lothian Health Services Archive
A group of people discussing and looking at materials in the Lothian Health Services Archive
A group of people discussing and looking at materials in the Lothian Health Services Archive
A group of people discussing and looking at materials in the Lothian Health Services Archive
A group of people discussing and looking at materials in the Lothian Health Services Archive
Can you help improve provision of drop-in spaces in Edinburgh by filling in a ten-minute survey? 
Community Voices is a group of people who have experience of mental health issues and want to change things for the better. They’d really like to hear your views so they can call for improvements in drop-in space provision! You don’t need to have mental health issues or to have attended a drop-in space to fill in the survey.

Fill in the survey 

The survey is for anyone living in Edinburgh who is over 16 years old. Community spaces and drop-ins (free or donation-based social spaces that do not require booking), where people in Edinburgh can meet to socialise, help people form connections and reduce isolation. These are essential for maintaining people’s mental health. Community Voices will publish a report of their findings from the survey and ensure that it is distributed and presented to funding bodies, decision makers and service providers.
Scottish Parliament Garden Lobby Reception
CAPS hosted a stall at an event at the Scottish Parliament last week. This came about because of Collective Advocacy's representation on the Scottish Parliament’s Cross Party Group on Health Inequalities. This is a really important way for people with mental health issues to have their voices heard. Here’s a pic from the event!
People's Conference Report out now!

The People’s Conference is an annual event for people with lived experience of mental health issues in the Lothians to come together and speak about what is important to them. At the last conference Lothian Voices decided to focus on the topic of lived experience involvement. The group engaged in extensive discussions around what involvement feels like, how it can be improved, the challenges involved, and whose voices are being heard. The group felt it would be valuable to invite speakers who could spark conversations on the topic, sharing and reflecting on their own experiences. You can find out more about what was shared, discussed and deliberated upon in the conference report out now. Read the report

Very best wishes from all at CAPS!
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CAPS Independent Advocacy is a Scottish Charitable Incorporated Organisation Scottish Charity number: SC021772