Dorit Braun Following the tragic death of my daughter-in-law, I began to get involved in various initiatives to support clinicians to improve mental health services, and learn from deaths by overcoming the barriers to meaningful engagement of family and friends’ carers. I joined Making Families Count, and met with other family members and health …
To prevent such deaths requires health professionals to take a broader view of risk than ideation. This is also true for tragic homicides by people with acute mental illness. Health professionals need to listen attentively to the concerns of family members, and/or friends.
Many years ago, as a young woman, I also wanted to change the world. I wanted the inequalities within and between countries to be reduced.
The lead psychiatrist for the mental health trust phoned me. She was thoughtful, reflective and kind. I felt that she and her team were trying to reflect and learn.
I applied to join the Learning from Deaths: Learning and Action research Public and Relatives Steering Group in the hope that our family’s dreadful experience might be put to some good use. We don’t want other families to have to go through what we have suffered. I also knew that …
My much loved daughter in law Mariana Pinto died, aged 32, on 16 October 2016. The Coroner, issued a narrative verdict at the end of the inquest, on 13 March 2017: “Mariana Pinto died on Sunday, 16 October 2016, when she stepped over the balcony of her home, fell from …
I’ve had a few experiences of a loved one having some kind of breakdown or mental health crisis. What I have learnt is that the process of assessing a person in crisis takes very little, if any, account of the knowledge of the person’s loved ones/family/carers. The mental health crises …