2:18pm November 30, 2013

➸ I really fucking hate

youneedacat:

slashmarks:

youneedacat:

slashmarks:

andreashettle:

slashmarks:

youneedacat:

soilrockslove:

youneedacat:

That if something happened to me half of tumblr would explode but stuff IS happening to tons of other people and the same doesn’t happen. It’s not that half of tumblr shouldn’t explode for me, it’s that (if and when it’s safe for that person, to do so, and it’s not always, so that’s…

Yes, institutions shouldn’t happen to anyone. I wish there was some sort of network like you describe, but I don’t know how to get it started.

All the people who need it are in the least position to start it. I have some influence but not many resources (people confuse the two and come to me begging for assistance with problems I have no capacity to do much about, which reminds me SHIT I need to do my best anyway for someone soon that my cognitive problems made me forget all about), and most of the influence I have is over other people without many resources.

I think there are two main components to setting up what you’re talking about — housing/resources to help with life, and legal stuff to get people out of institutions if they’re trapped — and, yeah, unfortunately both are pretty money dependent. If people are interested I could set up sort of a tentative plan? Like, it’s nothing I could implement myself because I just don’t have the fundraising/volunteer finding abilities involved, but I have a pretty good idea of how it could be done with people who did. But I’m not sure if what y’all are saying is that you know how and just can’t… ugh

I’m not sure if I have any ideas concrete enough to really help. But I do wonder if perhaps one starting point (other than developing a more cohesive vision of exactly what something like this would “look like”, which might also be worthwhile) could be to identify organizations that are already doing something that is closely related in goals and vision and persuade them to extend their mission to include things like what you’re looking for. Or at least get them involved, more informally, with offering advice, ideas, guidance for how one might go about implementing a program like this.

Examples (though most of these will probably be familiar, at least for people in the US): MindFreedom International in the US, advocacy organization for users and survivors of psychiatry, among other things works to fight forced/coerced treatment (including coerced confinement to psychiatric institutes)

National Council on Independent Living (NCIL), also in the US, network of independent living centers providing services to enable more independent / community living (and also does some policy-related advocacy)

ADAPT (direction action advocacy promoting independent living)

Autistic Self Advocacy Network (ASAN)

Not Dead Yet

And I’m sure others could come up with more.

I realize none of these do exactly what is being talked about here. But I suspect most if not all will have staff/volunteers/etc. who are at least sympathetic and broadly supportive of the aims in principle. Even if they feel that the kind of program you’re talking about here is beyond the mission and scope of their organization, some of their individual staff members might still at least be open to meeting occasionally with advocates (by phone, if in-person meetings aren’t feasible) to engage in some general dialogue and mutual brainstorming of ideas for how to move forward.

Side note that, alas, as you probably realize organizations do have to be careful not to get too heavily involved across too many initiatives and activities, however wonderful and important many of them might be, or else they’ll spread themselves so thin they won’t be effective at anything. If lucky, perhaps some dialogue could lead an organization to realize they could more proactively support certain pieces of what you envision by extending their existing activities in certain directions that are easily compatible with what they’re already doing. But even if this doesn’t occur—and that would be probably a long shot—organizations like these would at least have people who have the background and experience to advise what things would need to happen in more concrete terms to make this happen. And if they are sold on the vision, AND ALSO sold on the PEOPLE “selling” the vision (ie believe that you are the right people to help organize what needs to happen to implement this vision) then they might also help with referring to other organizations and contacts that might have other kinds of advice/guidance.

I do think some kind of plan (from Slashmarks and/or others) would be a good starting point. It is usually easier for people/organizations to give guidance and advice if they have a clear understanding what you want to accomplish and how you hope to accomplish it and why you think your approach is likely to work better than whatever existing models/programs are in place. Then once you have a more detailed and concrete concept/plan, you could reach out to individuals/organizations that you think might have helpful insight, tell them you have a vision of a program you think should be implemented and wanted to “pick their brains” for how to go about making it happen, would they be comfortable looking briefly at your plan and having a conversation about it?

You might need two written versions of a plan: one longer and more detailed for people who are more closely involved with it, and also a much shorter summary of the plan (maybe one to two pages) that could be shared with people who are not yet involved but who you hope might have advice/guidance. Then if people have questions after reading the shorter summary, then the work you do in developing the more detailed version of the plan might help in knowing how to answer these questions. Or if they decide they want to be more closely involved, you could share a longer version of the plan.

Not sure if this has helped.

here is the organized but not terribly informative post, and here is the end of the conversation that led me to believe I might actually be able to start this with help. As you can tell it’s not as broad as the rambling initially was — unsurprisingly — but I think it’s do-able if enough people get involved.

Please remember what I said in my last post that wasn’t included here.

This is not a fully above-board thing. It can’t be if your goal is to actually get people out of institutions. Sometimes there is no legal way to get people out of institutions. Sometimes you have to do things that are illegal to get people out and keep them out and get it so they can stay out. There will have to be places people can hide that are not high-profile. There cannot be government funding or it will kill the entire process. This is a key part of the entire idea. Without this, it’s just going to be another partially-effective or ineffective organization that exists for itself and not to help people.
oh, I know. the thing is that… fully effective isn’t a thing that happens. it has to… start in a place. I can’t just wish the resources involved into being. and, what I can do is stuff through tumblr and social media and coordinating, and because I don’t HAVE money or a place to live that’s safe I can’t do most of the stuff that would be involved in getting people out of institutions illegally. I hope that someday I will be in a position to, but. Having housing and stuff for people who are struggling not to go into institutions or coming out of them is a place to start, and that’s… important. if I can’t start until I see a way to help everyone then nothing will ever start. (the other thing is that a lot of these people I am now talking to who are at least tangentially involved are NOT people I have relationships with in any sense — including you — which means that the private nature that’s necessary for any sort of organized lawbreaking is also a thing I can’t do. So — what I’m saying basically is that this is a thing I can maybe do right now, if I can get people to help, and it is not the only solution or the whole solution but it is maybe part of it.)

Oh okay. But still it doesn’t just have to be you. We can try and find people who could do these things. We can set up private discussion groups. To close off all the options at the start before even finding people terrifies me beyond all reason. Especially since there’s already organizations going through legal channels and they do that better than you or I can.

That’s exactly what I plan to do when I get home and talk to slashmarks.
Youneedacat, are you on Skype also or do you prefer email?
We could probably even use an IRC room.