Ivan Barry
Hello there. A little about me.
I worked for over twenty years in a variety of mental health recovery roles in the UK. I have been a support worker in community settings with a national charity, a social worker for local authorities in a supported mental health setting and I´m a certificated patient advocacy worker, a role I really enjoyed during my seven years in Scotland.
I provided patient support for young people detained against their wishes, acute admission and elder adults in psychiatric hospitals in Edinburgh and Fife and concluded my time with a year spent providing advocacy to adults held in forensic and restricted environments in Glasgow, Scotland.
I have a passion for helping people who struggle with hearing critical voices, hence this website!
I helped set up and facilitate support groups for voice hearers in Coventry, England, Swindon, Wiltshire, Edinburgh, Scotland and in Madison, Wisconsin, USA.
I have spoken and given workshops on the many diverse ways we hear voices, from the spiritual model through to the medical.
I have tried to inspire creative thinking and encourage more helpful responses in medical, health and education professionals as well as the general public when it come to hearing voices, our perception of this experience and try to raise awareness of what more we can do to help.
I gave talks in 2010 in Cairo and Alexandria, Egypt, Madison, Wisconsin, USA and at the International Congress on Hearing Voices in Cardiff, Wales, Madrid, Spain and Paris, France.
I have spoken on BBC Radio in the UK, on diverse local media outlets as well as Icelandic National TV in 2014.
If you care to have me visit, give a talk or a coping skill sharing workshop, there is more information elsewhere on here too.
I have been travelling for the past six years, entirely self funded and using crowd sourcing support to get me to events and conferences in the UK, Spain and France. It´s been an amazing and inspiring experience.
We can change negative misconceptions about people who hear voices. We can improve recovery rates by sharing skills and coping ideas. But we need to do even more.
Please email ivanjbarry@gmail.com for details on my talks and workshops.