3 minute read
Podcasts with a Social Conscience
JASON REED FROM LEAP UK & THE STOP AND SEARCH PODCAST SPEAKS TO THE PEOPLE BEHIND PODCASTS FROM THE CHARITY AND CAUSES SECTOR
When John-Barry Waldron created the On the Ward podcast, it was clear from the outset that he was going to have to dispel some entrenched myths about complex mental illness. Having worked as a mental health nurse all his working life, John-Barry is well placed to convey what it’s really like on the inside of a psychiatric ward.
Lots of people I know tend to think of a straitjacket and padded cells, the images you get from Hollywood movies. I hoped the podcast could challenge that by allowing patients to tell their own story.
I’d recently seen the movie The Joker - it’s a good film but it portrayed The Joker as having serious mental illness and that people are dangerous. I thought a podcast could show what the patients are actually like. There was also a sense that when patients go to hospital their lives stop and only start again when they leave the hospital. I felt by using the patient's own words they could talk about what their time in hospital had been like, I felt there were some misconceptions about what secure psychiatric hospitals are really like.
With such an intensely personal and deep subject matter, John-Barry was careful in how he wanted to construct a podcast.
The patients I interviewed were so engaging, open and honest, they had put a lot of faith in being heard. I realised that it was too important to not be released. The podcast is essentially me interviewing staff and patients who live and work in a secure mental health hospital. I hope that people can take away the fact that a psychiatric hospital is not what is portrayed in films. Yes, there are problems and they are not perfect, but they aren't like One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest anymore. People who have serious mental illness, their lives don't end when they go to hospital, they are still creating art, volunteering, making music, and helping others. I have seen more heart, compassion, empathy and love from mental health patients than anyone else.
On the Ward's listenership has been diverse and there are many ways in which the podcast has helped and continues to dispel taboos for patients and families.
The reaction has been phenomenal. I am always blown away by the fact that people are listening, but it's always the personal stories that resonate the most. The patients who featured in the podcast are always thankful whenever they see me. One keeps all the tweets his episode has received and reads them to me. I've had patients' families contact me and say that it made them less afraid or worried about visiting their son or daughter, and that it helped them understand what their loved one is going through. I think one of my fondest responses was a woman on Twitter/X who wrote that she wished she'd had the podcast to listen to before she went to hospital. Most importantly it has given a chance for people who never get heard to use their voice.
