Hi, I am Peter Beresford. I am a long-term user of mental health services, an activist, writer and researcher. I have written blogs before but have now decided to have my own dedicated blogsite.
I am finding it more and more difficult to make sense of the world. I wonder why the UK is called a rich nation and more and more people are having difficulty getting food to eat and a roof over their head. Why when all the evidence shows serious problems of climate change isn’t more being done about it. Why does there seem to be more fighting and conflict today in more parts of the world than at any time since the Second World War, when we all say we want to live in peace and harmony?
If like me you are confused and worried about the direction our society and the world we live in seem to be taking, then please check out this blog site. It aims to be a place where together we can build an alternative to the neo-liberal narrative that increasingly dominates our lives and which more and more of us seem to be internalizing.
My blogs will seek to address issues around the welfare state, public policy, having a say in your life and society, and living in a supportive rather than controlling state. I am particularly concerned with giving value to all our lived experience, especially that of people facing some of the biggest barriers, exclusions and oppressions in their lives, rather than only hearing what ‘the powerful’ and ‘experts’ tell us. Hopefully this blog is a chance to build that discussion.
Please comment, share and check out my social media.
Thank you.
Peter Beresford's Blog 
Well said Peter. Like you I am worried about inequality, lack of compassion, and the bind people are being put in. It’s insulting for those discriminated against by negative attitudes and structural barriers to be treated as if their desperate circumstances are due to personal failings. Cuts to essential services and basic support are leaving people unable to live with dignity. Subsistence level benefits are being eroded with the glib suggestion that it’s possible to make up the shortfall by working more hours. Why are so many of us standing by and letting this happen?
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There was a report about why the uprising in the middle east began and poverty and climate change were really big factors. I think we are only going to be seeing more conflict over the coming decades as countries start fighting over depleting resources.
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The question I struggle to answer is ‘what is the alternative to economic struggles though’ – the Department of Work and Pensions for example has become one of Britain’s biggest employers (also the least well equipped to deal with disabilities and impairments), unsure if that system was ever designed to meet the needs of such diverse populations.
My view is that too much empowerment and phasing out such systems of disempowerment is unlikely – people and the government have too much to lose if they actually applied the Social Model of Disability Enablement as it was intended (I still feel we need another humanistic disability re-integration/with me not against me model – another topic in itself).
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A question I find myself asking is ‘what is the alternative though’ when the Department of Work and Pensions for example is one of Britain’s biggest employers (yet least informed about mental health, disability and impairments) – I can hardly imagine the government wanting to make ’employment advisors’ advocates, true re-enablement coaches or positive influences in the chain of employability/re-enablement.
The real test of a society’s wealth and progression should be how able it is to support the needs of struggling individuals wanting to return to/access work, earn and become lived-experience consultants rather than how well a person can demonstrate ‘ability to work.’
My view is that applying the Social Model of Disability Enablement correctly (to all with barriers and impairments) would be too expensive for the government.
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Dear Peter, i too find it difficult to know were we as a society are headed. I think many are worried what does the future hold exactly if you are not monied? in same way either you earn
it or you are wedded to it. The rest have to play the lottery or a furit machine out of despertaion for change. This tragic status quo at present and inability to collectively protest for change as many younger people have no shared experience of group activity, they tell me they see the world as an individual isolated island, this tragic state of no engagement increases thier mental health needs levels of high anxiety, fear ect as they have little faith in any thing other than a life full of debit as learning is a cost, moving out of home means a shared house with strangers, a single room, this life is not heading for a greater good, the concept greater good is lost in an individual’s need to survive the daily living costs- Maslow had a hierarchy of needs shelter being number 1, at present there is no purser to get shelter right- we need homes that are secure and permanent to build a community with out that we have no social contact- s we have socity I fear we are entering a dog eat dog earr.
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