NIDUS-UK is the registered charity (Charity No. 1154650) supporting the development of nidotherapy and reform of mental health services in all countries of the world, but mainly in the United Kingdom. It also supports the workshops that have been held every year since 2006 and also provides online training in nidotherapy. In the past it has supported three projects, one in Guntur, Andhra Pradesh, India, the Mahatma Gandhi Institute for Comprehensive Mental Healthcare which celebrated its 10th anniversary in 2020.  The second project, supported by Porto Montenegro and a grant from the predecessor of NIDUS-UK, HAMLET-GIP, has involved the training of Montenegrin social workers and occupational therapists in both nidotherapy and modern community health practice. The third project is based in the East Midlands and involves promoting nidotherapy for people who live close to a new Nidotherapy Advice and Training Centre being constructed in Cotham, Nottinghamshire, with its opening planned in 2024. The Centre will train volunteers in the practice of nidotherapy and will also be helped by volunteers from a sister charity, The Listening Place in London, that helps people who are feeling suicidal.

 

At present NIDUS-UK is not publicly advertising for referrals as only a few people can be seen at any one time but this will change when we have volunteers trained in 2024.  The aim is to provide nidotherapy at all levels of mental distress.  At lower levels only simple environmental changes are likely to be needed, but intervention becomes more difficult for complex problems. The charity has new partners in the NHS (Central and North West London Mental Health Trust), the RAF and Nottingham Trent University, the latter likely to be a growing part of the charity’s portfolio.

 

The Trustees of NIDUS-UK are:

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Professor Peter Tyrer, Emeritus Professor of Community Psychiatry at the Division of Psychiatry, Imperial College, London and Honorary Consultant in Nidotherapy, CNWL Trust

Dr Maja Ranger, formerly Consultant Psychiatrist in Rehabilitation, Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust

Dr Jed Boardman, Senior Lecturer in Social Psychiatry and Consultant Psychiatrist at South London and Maudsley NHS Trust, and Lead on Social Inclusion at the Royal College of Psychiatrists

Ms Sandra O’Sullivan, Research Delivery Manager, NIHR Clinical Research Network, North West London

Ms Kaatje Lomme, Project Manager, NIHR Clinical Research Network

Mr Steve Watson, photographer, Newark, Nottinghamshire

Dr Catherine Gardiner, general practitioner, Rochester, Kent

Dr Rosalind Watts, clinical psychologist, London

Dr Peter Carter, former Chief Executive, Royal College of Nursing, Wheathampstead, Hertfordshire

Ms Kimberley Adams, Matron for Theatre Recovery, City Hospital, Nottingham

Mr Daniel Adams, HV/DC Tender Director, Northern Europe

Mr Tony Brentford, retired businessman

 

The bank account of NIDUS-UK is with the Cooperative Bank.  NIDUS-UK is linked to the Global Initiative in Psychiatry (GIP), based in Hilversum, the Netherlands, and has an associated account for the Jim Birley Scholarships, set up in memory of the late Chairman of GIP, Dr James Birley.

You can make single or regular donations to NIDUS-UK using the DONATE BUTTON on the menu of the web-site. No charge is made for nidotherapy and so we are dependent on donations in addition to teaching and training income.

 

One of the related activities of NIDUS-UK is to improve self-confidence and widen horizons through the production and performance of operettas involving actors and singers of all ages and talents, and the particular aspect of nidotherapy that this promotes is ‘inclusion’ – the ability to bring everyone down (or up) to a common level whereby status and position do not matter and the play dictates the terms.  This is an excellent means of eliminating the standard hierarchies in mental health practice.

 

Under the heading of ‘Operettas‘ you can see examples of this. ‘Browning’ is an operetta describing the 1845 romance of Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning. The performers include psychiatric patients with major mental disorders, professors of psychiatry, consultant psychiatrists, students, children and other health professionals, and with a jazz musician (Colin Dudman) and a former conductor (Daniel Tomkins) keeping all in time. Most observers would be hard put to differentiate between these groups when seeing the operetta.  More recently, we have hosted seven performances of the Newarke Canterbury Tales in Newark, Collingham, Southwell, Hawton, Stamford, Rochester and Canterbury, so retracing the steps that Newark pilgrims took when walking to Canterbury to honour the martyred Archbishop, Thomas a’Becket.  Two radio plays have also been produced, The King’s Journey and the Watemeadow Secret, supported by a grant from the Heritage Lottery. Another play, The Battle of Stoke Field, has also been published. This last battle of the Wars of the Roses took place in 1467 close to the village of Cotham. We hope to have the first performance of this soon and also include players who have been involved in nidotherapy.