The experiences and memories of Nottinghamshire residents who have been supported by Middle Street Resource Centre (MSRC) are to be collected as part of a heritage project to mark 50 years of the Centre.
MSRC in Beeston is a mental health-focussed community centre which offers a variety of support groups, therapeutic one-to-one support, and volunteering opportunities to promote mental health wellbeing.
Supported by a £98,000 National Heritage Lottery Fund grant, researchers from the School of Social Sciences and the School of Arts and Humanities at Nottingham Trent University (NTU) will work with past and present service users, staff, volunteers, peer support groups, local residents and NTU students to record and document stories and experiences, including those of the community activists who campaigned to save the Centre in 2010.
The project aims to put communities and individuals with lived experience of mental illness at the heart of helping future generations interpret and understand the hidden history of mental health in Nottinghamshire. It will also promote inclusivity by removing barriers to participation for people with mental ill health, who are under-represented in heritage.
Collecting the material will be more than 60 volunteers from a wide range of backgrounds, including young people. They will use creative and interpretive methods to explore MSRC’s legacy, such as oral history, curatorial and archival skills, digital photography, poetry writing and performance and craft-making.
Leading the project is Dr Verusca Calabria, who is an oral historian, trustee of the Oral History Society and research fellow in the Department of Social Work, Care and Community at NTU’s School of Social Sciences. She said: “The experiences and histories of disabled people are often absent from museums and archives, and very few collections of oral histories which focus specifically on mental health exist in the UK. This project aims to raise public awareness of the heritage of this rare community based service that has touched thousands of people’s lives over its 50 year history, and to celebrate people with lived experiences of mental health difficulties within the UK’s wider heritage context.
“MSRC is unique as a community based service in Nottinghamshire which supports pathways of recovery for people with enduring mental health challenges. Its users and allies are anxious to document and celebrate the Centre’s hidden heritage, including the story of activism and the important role the Centre has been playing in supporting the wellbeing of the local community over the last 50 years.”
Robert Ashford, CEO at Middle Street Resource Centre said: “There is an imminent risk of losing the heritage of our Centre as many of the people involved in its long history areno longer able to tell their stories. This project will help the heritage of our centre to beunearthed and recorded for posterity.”
The oral history recordings, transcripts, collated historical documents, and creative outputs will be displayed at local libraries, as well as being stored digitally and deposited in the NTU Data Repository and Nottinghamshire Archives, which will be freely accessible to the public.
For further information on the project, please contact Dr Verusca Calabria, email:[email protected], tel. 0115 8482053.