3 March 2008

Pact CEO Louise Carr is encouraging Pact staff to think about how clients might benefit from funds now available to help improve support for former and current mental health patients.

The Frozen Funds Charitable Trust was launched in late February and expects to give $300,000 annually in grants for projects run by or for people who use mental health or intellectual disability services. The trust board has seven members; four of whom are consumers of mental health or intellectual disability services.

Louise attended the launch in Wellington and said it was a very moving occasion, acknowledging those people who had lived in institutions—many of whom never got to experience post-institutional life.

Applications for this year’s grants are due by March 31. They must be for projects whose purpose is to raise public awareness of the legacy of institutionalisation.

The trust was created from the historic Patient’s Recreation Fund, which was a general fund created from the interest on individual institutionalised psychiatric and psychopaedic patient trust funds. The money was originally intended to be used for the good of all patients, however, in the late 1980s this practice was stopped, the funds frozen and interest returned to patients where possible.

“The practice may have been well meant,” says disability issues minister, Ruth Dyson, “but it reflected beliefs that were prevalent at the time: that institutions always knew what was best for their residents; and that people with experience of mental health, and people with intellectual or learning disabilities, did not need to be involved in decisions about issues concerning them.”

For further comment please contact:
Louise Carr
Pact CEO
Ph: 03 470 2206
Cell: 027 499 3251
louise.carr@pactgroup.co.nz