All Change Please?
New Developments, New Directions, New Standards in Human Rights and the Vocation of Care: Historical, legal, clinical perspectives
Autonomy Summer School Programme
This year’s Summer School will be held on the 11th, 12th and 13th July at the Wivenhoe House Hotel on the University of Essex’s Colchester Campus
Speakers:
Lucy Series (Cardiff University)
Alex Ruck Keene (39 Essex Chambers)
Benoît Eyraud (Max Weber Centre, Université Lyon)
Renato Constantino Caycho (Pontifica Universidad Católica del Peru)
Beatrice Han-Pile (Philosophy at Essex)
Penelope Brown (IoPPN, Kings College London)
Wayne Martin (EAP)
Matt Burch (EAP)
Every year, the Essex Autonomy Project organises a three-day summer school, open to everyone interested in understanding, promoting and protecting autonomy – particularly in the context of care relationships. We regularly welcome practitioners in social work, law, medicine and psychiatry, as well as policy makers, students and academic researchers. Our aim is to bring participants up-to-date on the most recent policy changes, both nationally and internationally, but also to engage with the clinical, philosophical, and sociological issues underpinning, and arising from, these changes.
The Essex Autonomy Project Summer School is an invaluable space to consider issues away from the immediacy of day-to-day implementation dilemmas.
Summer School participant
This year, the care sector is facing unprecedented change: In the UK, Parliament is considering the Mental Capacity Act Amendment Bill; the Wessely Review has recommended changes to the Mental Health Act; and NICE has released new guidelines in relation to decision-making and mental capacity. In France, amendments to Civil Code 414 have been proposed. In Peru, guardianship has been abolished. The Editorial of the most recent issue of World Psychiatry proposes that the CRPD itself be amended. As such, change itself will be one of our central themes. We will be exploring the complex ways in which legal change interacts with social, political, and clinical change, and will be considering a variety of ways of theorising these changes. Are we in the midst of the kind of “paradigm shift” that Thomas Kuhn famously described? Can Foucault’s concept of an “episteme” help us understand the changes that are underway? Does his later conception of “acceptability” have something to contribute? Or do we perhaps need to develop entirely new ways of theorising the kinds of change that would be required in order fully to embed modern human rights standards within the institutions and practices of care.
Why attend the Essex Autonomy Project Summer School?
A particular strength of our Summer School is its dual theoretical and practical focus. Associated with the Human Rights Centre at the University of Essex, we are at the forefront of providing a robust research basis for the movement to promote the autonomy of vulnerable persons. Our Summer Schools have been providing training and a debate platform for professionals and academics involved in mental health work since 2010. Professor Wayne Martin and his team have experience providing training to judges, mental health workers and civil servants working in this area.
The venue
Wivenhoe House is a Grade II listed building and four-star hotel, located in the University of Essex’s Wivenhoe Park. There is plenty of free parking on-site, and high-speed Wi-Fi.
Summer School packages include attendance at the three-day training course, course materials, lunch and refreshments. Accommodation can be arranged separately, either at the hotel itself, or a few minutes walk away on the University of Essex campus. For more information, see our accommodation page: https://autonomy.essex.ac.uk/summer-school/summer-school-accommodation/
