The national Hearing Voices Network in England (HVN) has been established for almost 20 years and became a registered charity in 2002. Although HVN has existed on limited funding with a small team of paid staff and volunteers, the organisation has achieved much throughout this time. We have:

• Established and supported 182 Hearing Voices Groups across England. Groups run mainly within the community but also within statutory and voluntary sector services including acute settings, prisons and secure settings and a number of specialist groups for women, BME people and young people have also been established.

• Supported hearing voices group facilitators and local network development.

• Provided individual and group membership and developed an individual and group membership database.

• Published a quarterly newsletter.

• Published a range of publications.

• Provided training, conferences and events to 100’s of participants.

• Provided information and support to voice hearers, family members, mental health professionals and researchers via a telephone information line and email.

• Provided a confidential help line for voice hearers.

• Provided a web site.

• Developed strong links with international networks and become an active member of Intervoice.

• Supported on-going research into hearing voices and allied subjects.

• Liaised with the media which has resulted in a number of positive broadcasts and publications about HVN and voice hearing both nationally and internationally.

• Supported several people to safely end reliance on statutory services.

• Contributed to the collection of evidence that shows the successes of voice hearers outside statutory mental health services.

• Raised awareness of the benefits of talking about voices, the value of peer support and promoted this innovative approach to voice hearers, family members and mental health professionals.

As a consequence, Hearing Voices Groups and the ‘Hearing Voices Approach’ have now become more common place and more accepted within mainstream mental health services. A recent Healthcare Commission report, ‘The Pathway to Recovery: A review of NHS acute inpatient mental health services (2008), commended mental health trusts which provided hearing voices groups as offering ‘appropriate and safe interventions’ in acute settings.

2. The Need for the organisation to change:

Many of the developments listed above have occurred organically. As a consequence they have happened unevenly across the country. Some areas have a well developed network with several groups and support and training in place for facilitators, while other areas have few or no groups.

The need to obtain funding, with limited capacity to do so, has held back the development of longer term thinking and, as a result, the organisation has tended to be led by circumstances and opportunities as they arise rather than pursuing it’s own agenda.

This has meant that little time has been devoted to developing the infrastructure of the organisation or in constructing a strategic vision and a financially sustainable long term development plan.

Also, HVN has become over reliant on short term grant funding from charitable Trusts at a time when charities can no longer be confident in their reliance on this as a sole source of income. Therefore, there is now a need for us to work towards creating more sustainable sources of funds.

This has led led Trustees to conclude that now is an opportune time to step back and:

• Review HVN’s achievements.

• Revisit HVN’s aims and objectives.

• Re-vision HVN to enable it to become a sustainable and more effective organisation.

As a result we have decided to undertake a national consultation process with all of our primary and secondary stakeholders to get feedback on what services they want from the organisation and to ascertain their views on the future of the Hearing Voices Network.

3. Current aims and objectives of the Hearing Voices Network:

The aims of HVN are:

• To raise awareness of voice hearing, visions, tactile sensations and other sensory experiences

• To give men, women and children who have these experiences an opportunity to talk freely about this together.

• To support anyone with these experiences seeking to understand, learn and grow from them in their own way.

HVN has sought to achieve its aims through these activities:

• Promoting, developing and supporting self-help groups

• Organising and delivering training sessions for health workers and the general public

• Making available a telephone line that gives information and help to people who experience hearing voices, seeing visions and tactile sensations

• Providing men, women and children who have these experiences an opportunity to talk freely about them

• Producing four newsletters a year

Question: What do you think about our aims and current activities?

• To what extent do you think have we achieved our aims?

• Describe what you think we need to do to improve the extent to which we meet them.

• Are the activities outlined above still the most useful way for us to realise our aims?

• Do you think we need to change our aims, or add new ones?

• What services that we currently provide do you consider to be essential?

4. New strategic plan: Hearing Voices Network - Outline Organisational Vision

HVN trustees have considered the most effective ways for the organisation to achieve its aims with the limited resources available and have come up with the following thoughts on the best way forward.

The kinds of work that we envisage HVN will/could/should be doing in the coming years are outlined below.

i) Training

Income generating (other than grant funding)

• Provision of training for professionals on how to facilitate a hearing voices group

• HVN branded and accredited (and later accredited by external educational organisations) training on Hearing voices and a range of clearly related areas

• Bespoke training

• Initially delivered through existing network of voice hearer trainers and later delivered by an expanded network of voice hearer trainers

• Delivered centrally though HVN ( i.e. we contract with trainers not purchasers)

• Courses sold to a range of audiences

Non income generating (grant funded initially and later funded through income generation)

• Programme of training for voices hearers to enable them to become part of network of trainers

• Programme of training for voice hearers to enable them to become facilitators of hearing voices groups

ii) Network support and development

Income generating (other than grant funding)

• Provision of training for professionals to become facilitators of hearing voices groups

• Cheaper rate on HVN paid for training as benefit of becoming a member

None income generating (grant funded initially then later funded through income generation)

• Meeting the support needs of voices hearers who have been on training to become trainers courses in order to help them sustain themselves as trainers

• Programme of training for voice hearers ot become facilitators of hearing voices groups

• Development and protection of the HVN brand

• Development and implementation of the HVN charter with Hearing Voices Groups

• Clear membership arrangements in terms of who, what types of membership, benefits and responsibilities

• Quality control of groups and training and anything else delivered under the HVN brand/banner

iii) Publications

Income generating

• Promoting sales of publications that we already have (eg by translating them, by advertising them etc)

• Developing capacity and capability for online sales

• Developing our own publishing brand

• Developing new publications

• Improving the quality (physical) of publications that we already sell

iv) Campaigning/Influencing

Non income generating

• Attracting patrons

• Developing HVN profile

• Public speaking

• Raising awareness

• Lobbying

• Media availability

• Targeting specific markets with our products

• Develop/clarify/redefine HVN position

• Challenging traditional psychiatry’s focus on diagnostic labelling and the pathologising of hearing voices and other unusual experiences.

v) Events

Income generating

• Critical Psychiatry Network/University of East London/HVN annual conference

• HVN national conferences (08 events model)

• AGM (Not income generating)

vi) Information Provision

Non income generating

• Developing the website as a resource

• Provision of information leaflets

• Advice/information line (as distinct from any help/support line)

Question: What do you think about the proposed ways forward?

• Are these the best ways for HVN to achieve its aims, bearing in mind the limited resources available?

• Which services do you think HVN should run in the future?

Question: What do you think about our structure and infrastructure?

Could you outline any thoughts or ideas you have about:

• Adopting a regional structure?

• Changing/Improving our membership structure?

• HVN’s relationship with associate trainers?

• HVN’s relationship with regional networks – the role of the national office, affiliation arrangements – e.g. London network model?

• Ways for HVN to generate more sustainable income?

General Consultation Questions:

• What are the three most important things you would incorporate into a statement about what HVN should be trying to achieve (i.e. our mission)?

• Are there any other areas of HVNs activities or future you would like to comment on?

5. Who we are consulting:

Focus groups with voice hearers and facilitators in 9 regions: