Program for Caracas

Página en español

WFSAD Symposium and Workshops
at World Psychiatric Regional Congress, Caracas, Venezuela, October 1-4, 2003

Symposium
The symposium was well attended. Dr. Itzhak Levav was an excellent chairman, taking great care to get the most out of both the sessions he chaired. There were ample questions and a positive response from the audience. The speeches of the three speakers were well received and will be available to WFSAD members and Caracas delegates upon request.

Morning Workshop
Diane Froggatt briefly outlined the work of WFSAD. Damelis Salazar introduced herself as one of the panelists and described the work of CATESFAM, whose mission was to be a centre of excellence allowing people with schizophrenia to work on their own recovery following the 10-step model applied by patient and family. Francisco Morata spoke of the work of the Spanish federation of mental health organizations, FEAFES.

This session was designed as an interactive workshop to discuss the subject matter of the symposium. Questions ranged from how to persuade people to go for treatment to the ethics of compulsory treatment. The problems of patients living at home with their families and the need for respite for such families was particularly relevant in countries where there is no community housing for those with psychiatric problems.

Dr. Juan Mas Vivanco, a Chilean psychiatrist, brought his session to our room when one of the speakers for his session did not arrive, and took an active part. Sad to say he described a situation in Chile, which left patients "totally discarded" despite attempts at reform.

Damelis Salazar of CATESFAM, Maracaibo, Venezuela, asks a question during the symposium. In the foreground are Sergio Ruffinelli and Ofelia Stajano of Esperanza, Montevideo, Uruguay.

Afternoon Closed Private Sessions
The closed sessions were designed as educational and informative workshops for family-leader-delegates. The room was set up with five round tables to enable small-group discussion. An important objective of these sessions was to re-affirm the goals of the Guatemala Declaration, dated July 13, 2002, written at the first meeting of the Alianza Latina WFSAD in Guatemala. Members might decide to revise the goals in the light of the increased membership in the Alianza Latina WFSAD.

People settled readily to this task. The small-group format proved to be an excellent way for delegates to get to know about each other's work, and to discuss the efficacy of the Guatemala Declaration.

The session re-affirmed that the ten issues in the Declaration were still significant. The new points raised enhanced, rather than changed, its intent. These will be formulated into an addendum to the Guatemala Declaration entitled the Caracas Addendum.

During the meeting each organization received a copy of the results of the WFSAD survey of Alianza Latina WFSAD members, conducted from July-September 2003. This document describes the activities, current priority issues, and obstacles of each organization. There was no formal discussion of this material but we were able to highlight several of the more interesting initiatives by asking delegates to give short presentations focusing on these. The document will serve as a benchmark for operationalizing the Guatemala Declaration in each country in the next year.

Joyce Dawson (Ypsilon, Surinam) spoke of the very rewarding experience of going into the schools and how the children became much more sympathetic once they had actually met people with mental disorders. They began by educating the teachers, first about Tourettes and autism and going on to the other disorders. "Our children are the future. How they behave determines our society," she told the group. A patient accompanies the team. "This helps the children to realize that you can be normal from the outside but who knows what may have happened inside. Part of our teaching was to show children how to talk without causing wounds, and accept people as they are." Joyce's presentation was short but affecting.

Dr. Raimundo Muscellini talked about the clubhouse 'Casa Club,' that ACAPEF Argentina has set up to help improve the recovery of patients. Cognitive psychotherapy and social skills training are given along with employment and recreational activities. Families were involved and became partners in treatment. We "don't leave them alone in the chaos," he explained. For the patients the main objective was social insertion, giving help to those who need it to live in the community. Hospitals were part of the past.

Francisco Morata, President of FEAFES, Spain, spoke about how to persuade the media not to sensationalize mental illness. We hope to put this talk on the website in both Spanish and English.

Pfizer Venezuela hosted a reception at a very nice restaurant. Thanks to Oswaldo Parilli of Pfizer and his colleagues for this truly lovely event.

Delegates listen attentively to a speaker during the private workshops.

Morning Workshop 3rd October
Prof. Julian Leff conducted an interactive two-hour workshop. Notes on his presentation are available to members upon request. One very interesting point he made was the new thinking about hallucinations and delusions that suggests that people can be assisted to overcome them. The previous thinking was that delusions were beliefs that were "impervious to reasoned thought" and that families should not aggravate things by trying to change them.

Cecilia Villares (ABRE, Brazil) presented an informative slide show about her organization's experience with the WPA program "Open the Doors." This program is designed to fight stigma and discrimination at the local level. We hope to provide more detailed information about this shortly.

How our sessions were received
All the sessions were received positively. There was great appreciation for the printed materials provided and the subjects covered. The small-group sessions were a great success. Inevitably, a few people expressed disappointment that there was not more time or that there was a need to cover more topics.

There was an overall feeling of joy among our delegates at having a second meeting of Latin families. They have each contacted us since returning home. Both WFSAD and the Alianza Latina WFSAD are anxious to continue the relationships and to build the network in the hope of enabling advocacy for, and implementation of, better care for those who suffer mental illness through no fault of their own. The plan to meet again in one year (see below) provides an impetus for the Alliance to continue to improve the capacity of their organizations for self-help, support and advocacy.

Dr Edgardo Engelmann (Argentina), Prof. Dale Johnson (WFSAD President Elect), Prof. Julian Leff (UK) and Dr. Itzhak Levav (Israel) take a break between sessions.

Future Initiatives
After the final WFSAD session, a committee was formed to plan for another meeting of the Alianza Latina WFSAD during the APAL meeting in Punta del Este, Uruguay, November 17-20, 2004. The committee is composed of Sergio Ruffinelli Villaamil (Esperanza, Uruguay), Ofelia Stajano (Esperanza Uruguay) Elena Saban (Alamo, Peru), Martha Piatigorsky (WFSAD V-P, Argentina) and Diane Froggatt. A planning agenda was made and work will begin in November 2003. Members of the Alianza will each try to raise their own funding for this initiative. We informed Dr. Edgard Belfort (Uruguay) of our intention to hold workshops at APAL next year and he offered to help us in any way we might suggest. We are now urging the medical advisor psychiatrists in Latin America, who support our work and are part of our network, to apply to speak on family work at this congress as soon as APAL is accepting abstracts.

Acknowledgements
We owe our sincere thanks to the Pfizer Foundation for sponsoring this event under their program "Strengthening Patient Advocacy Around the World" and to Pfizer Venezuela and their representative Osualdo Parilli and his team for their attention to our requirements.

Dr. Itzhak Levav was a great support as chairman of two of the sessions. His eloquence, sensitivity and approachability made the sessions particularly special. He is a well-loved figure in Latin America as a former executive of the Pan American Health Organization.

He is now active in the WHO initiative to bring the private sector to bear on raising the profile of mental illness: The Global Council for Mental Health. WFSAD is part of one of the preliminary working groups in this initiative.

We would like to thank Dr. Edgard Belfort, the chair of the WPA organizing committee, for his kind attention to all the WFSAD delegates. Jose Manuel Juanatey, the staff member with whom Karina Stone (project coordinator) dealt throughout the preparations and during the meeting, was friendly, helpful and extremely efficient in solving any problems that arose.

Gail Grossman, a professional interpreter, did an excellent job of consecutive translation. We thank her for her agile mind, slipping in and out of English and Spanish so easily that the information was imparted with minimal delay.

Thanks also go to journalist Mariela Nunez of El Nacional, whose half-page article with photograph in the newspaper helped to publicize the family movement for mental illness in Venezuela.

About Our Speakers

Dr. Itzhak Levav

Special Adviser for Mental Health, Ministry of Health, Department for Information and Evaluation of Mental Health Services, Jerusalem, Israel. Former executive of the Pan American Health Organization.

Dr. Edgardo Engelmann

Argentinian Psychiatrist who has published and been spokesman (nationaly and internationaly) about Psychoeducation and Resocialization as key tools for the treatment of Schizophrenia. Since 1993 he has been the Medical Advisor of APEF (National Family Organization in Argentina).

Prof. Julian Leff

Prof. Leff is a distinguished psychiatrist from the U.K. who has worked with families for many years. He has been a medical advisor to the National Schizophrenia Fellowship (now called RETHINK) and serves in that capacity for WFSAD. His work with regard to having a low key approach in the care of a person with schizophrenia is well known.

Prof. Dale Johnson

Prof. Johnson is a Professor of Psychology at University of Houston. Dale has written several books to assist families of the mentally ill to cope. In 1990, together with Prof. Harriet P. Lefley, he edited the book Families as Allies in Treatment of the Mentally Ill. He was an active member of the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill, Texas, for many years and is a former president of the NAMI national organization. Dale has a son with schizophrenia.

Diane Froggatt

Ms Froggatt is Secretary and Executive Director of WFSAD. She has worked for many years in the local, regional and nationalfamily organizations in Canada, and has held the position of Executive Director of WFSAAD since 1987. She has a son who has challenged schizophrenia for 19 years.

Francisco Morata Andreo

D. Francisco Morata Andreo is President of la Confederación Española de agrupaciones de Familiares y Enfermos Mentales (FEAFES), a post he has held since 1995. At the same time, he is founder and current president of la Asociación para la Integración Comunitaria de Enfermos Psíquicos de Cartagena y su Comarca (APICES). Before dedicating his time to this work, he was Deputy Mayor of Cartagena for 12 years. His wife died as the result of a serious mental illness, and he is the father of a son with mental illness.

Damelis Salazar

Bachelor in Education. Founder of the Centro de Atención al Esquizofrénico y su Familia (CATESFAM) in 1998. The idea of creating this centre emerged because she has a brother with Schizophrenia. Currently she is President of the centre and she maintains direct liaisons with the families that, like her, are directly affected by this sickness. She attends as co-therapist to the weekly self-help family reunions, and creates action plans to fight stigma against the people with schizophrenia.