Author: Suzanne Conboy-Hill

disability, heavy load, stay up late campaign2 Comments

‘Heavy Load’ and the ‘Stay Up Late’ campaign

Suzanne Conboy-Hill

After posting last week about our staff awards night and reading this week our chief executive’s blog on same, my mind suddenly fell over an uncomfortable memory. It concerned the contrast between the unspoken freedoms that attending this event represented and the infuriating and humiliating constraints that are the more common experience of most people with learning disabilities. Heavy Load is a Brighton-based punk rock band comprising a mixed membership of people with and without learning disabilities and their mission is to change the way staffing shifts impact on their social lives. This is what they say Lots of people … Continue reading ‘Heavy Load’ and the ‘Stay Up Late’ campaign

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Sussex Partnership Search for a Star

Suzanne Conboy-Hill

On Thursday June 17th, about 500 employees of Sussex Partnership, a 5000 strong organisation, gathered in posh frocked, tuxed and bow-tied unfamiliarity, at the Corn Exchange in the centre of Brighton for our annual awards ceremony. This is a night of celebration, a way for outstanding achievement and exemplary professionalism to be recognised so that everyone from volunteers to leaders has chance to excel. And this year, for the first time, there was an award for Excellence in Research which just goes to show how far we have come in getting clinician-led research on the map. We were all there, … Continue reading Sussex Partnership Search for a Star

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authors, publish fiction, sci fi, short story writing21 Comments

Hugo Nominee – are we suckered by techno-twaddle?

Suzanne Conboy-Hill

I like my sci-fi, really I do, and having been inducted at the age of eight into this genre, I am more than familiar with the essentials of pseudo-scientific terminology. Heck, I write it myself and I appreciate both the value and the pitfalls of inventing tech-speak to describe something that isn’t yet in existence. For me, the best tech-speak conveys a sense of familiarity so that, on reading it, I have a feeling I know what this is even though that has to be impossible. The worst offers a stream of multi-hyphenated guff and tells me this is ‘normal’, … Continue reading Hugo Nominee – are we suckered by techno-twaddle?

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academic, health care, research, Sussex Partnership, Sussex UniversityLeave a comment

Sussex Partnership research conference

Suzanne Conboy-Hill

This was the Trust’s third R&D conference, a reflection of the key role research now plays in NHS activity and how recent this incorporation has been. Clinicians have always undertaken research and development, whether in response to highly focused problem solving for a specific issue or as a more speculative process out of which something entirely original was born. The difference now is that, rather than working alone with no formal structures by which to network for new skills and ideas, we are increasingly able to access the vast resources of university colleagues and they, in turn, are able to … Continue reading Sussex Partnership research conference

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publish fiction, short story writingLeave a comment

Double or dilute?

Suzanne Conboy-Hill

Chances, that is. Last week, after mercilessly punching out redundancy and pruning my tiny story down to the even tinier requisite of 500 words, I submitted the final product to an online competition. My first. Virgin territory. Exhausted, I crawled away to bandage psychic wounds (all those abandoned and unwanted words, left unloved by the literary roadside) and to sleep off the emotional ravages of exposing my soul to public judging. Well ok, bit of dramatic licence there but you know where I’m coming from, right? Anyway, two days later and an acknowledgment appears. Yes, they received it, yes, the … Continue reading Double or dilute?

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academic, Sussex Partnership1 Comment

Research & Development conference

Suzanne Conboy-Hill

Big day tomorrow. The R&D team will be standing to attention, fingernails scrubbed and hair neatly parted on the left (right, for the lefties – if you get my drift). It’s our annual conference and an opportunity to let the rest of the organisation and local media know what we’re up to in research terms. Prof Louis Appleby CBE is a reformer of mental health services and our keynote speaker and there are others from the fields of autism and academia – Prof Hugo Critchley of Sussex Partnership and the UCL Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, and Prof Graham Davey of … Continue reading Research & Development conference

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Research question #2

Suzanne Conboy-Hill

There has been quite a lot of viewing of this item so I thought it might be useful to put up an illustration of what I mean by public involvement in research. Here’s a possible situation to think about. It isn’t an actual study but it parallels some of the problems that can arise: Supposing a research team looking at stress management approaches a small workforce, 10-12 people max, and says they want to teach stress management techniques to everyone. Then they want to come in regularly over the next few months to give them questionnaires and interview them about … Continue reading Research question #2

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academic, public participation7 Comments

Get Involved with Research

Suzanne Conboy-Hill

This is an experiment. If we post research questions and ideas, would you folks out there, the public, think about them, comment and help us shape our work? Well, let’s give it a go shall we? The first question is about this very thing and it’s on its own page, where it will stay because it’s over-arching. New questions will be posted here so the comments can follow on in order. And if you have ideas for mental health and learning disability research you think should get some attention, why not tell us? All your comments will be read and, … Continue reading Get Involved with Research

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Richard Gregory 24/7/23 – 17/5/2010

Suzanne Conboy-Hill

Richard Gregory was one of those extraordinary individuals whose ability to think creatively about complex neuropsychological matters was matched only by his ability to communicate his ideas to the rest of us. As ‘A’ level zoology students, his seminal book ‘Eye and Brain‘ was our key to understanding the complex relationship between visual apparatus and visual experience and later, as a student nurse, I remember using it to gently explain this to a tutor who had (wrongly) failed my essay on the neural structure of the optic tract. Much later, giving my first paper to the Experimental Psychology Society at  … Continue reading Richard Gregory 24/7/23 – 17/5/2010

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