would have had to be some kind of explosion to bring them here,’ she says. Progress for these patients can mean sitting still for 10 minutes, making eye contact or speaking in front of a group for the first time. ‘One woman was here for eight months and when I first met her she wouldn’t look at me,’ Eleanor says. ‘She always used to sit in the dark. I used to see her in the evenings. I didn’t hear her speak to anybody and in the first few sessions I would give her a poem – I just left it near her. And one time she actually took the poem. It was quite incredible. I eventually got her to look at me and to speak to me. And she would come to the groups and sit with the lights on with four or five other people and read out loud for an hour.’ The isolation experienced by this patient is common on the wards. One man Eleanor has worked with for four months spoke in a group for the first time the week before. Most of the interaction in the group is through Eleanor and the sort of connection made by David and Mark is rare. It’s the regular association with others, at their own pace, which breaks down barriers and gradually builds confidence, Eleanor says.

Biggest developments Eleanor doesn’t pretend that the reading group is the only factor involved in these patients’ recoveries but it is, she believes, an important one. Dr David Fearnley, Medical Director and Deputy Chief Executive of Mersey Care, agrees. Get into Reading, he has said, ‘is one of the biggest developments in mental health practice in the last 10 years’. Jane Davis, who founded the Reader Organisation and continues to oversee Get into Reading, has witnessed a massive growth in interest in the groups and what they can achieve, from a wide array of individuals and organisations, including mental health trusts. ‘That’s where the work has built most spectacularly,’ she says. ‘A lot of trusts are interested in doing what Mersey Care has done and develop a reader-in-residence programme. We’ve got five of those now and a lot of the work is training people who work within the trusts to read with people who are inpatients. It’s a fantastic feeling to think that poetry or novels or short stories are finding their ways into those closed environments and becoming a normal aspect of life.’ A survey of mental health groups run by the Reader in London and the North West found that 78 per cent of participants felt reading had improved their mood, while 84 per cent said they were better able to relax as a result. Three-quarters said that the groups had helped them ‘think about things in a different way’ and 70 per cent said they now understood other people better. Ninety-six per cent said they enjoyed listening to what other people had to say while 79 per cent said that in the group they were ‘able to be myself’. A 12-month evaluation of the Get into Reading reader-in-residence programme at Mersey Care also found clear benefits, not only to service users, who reported increased confidence, improved communication skills, enhanced memory skills and enjoyment and stimulation, but among staff, who reported gains in terms of professional development, interest in literature and their relationships with service users. The Reader Organisation has now trained more than 500 people to run reading groups, many of them working or volunteering in mental health or care settings. Work with older people, particularly in sheltered accommodation, has been another growth area. Reading aloud – or being read to – has proved particularly helpful in supporting and stimulating people with dementia. Last year the Reader worked with Bupa to deliver a six- month pilot project working with residents, staff and family members in eight care homes in Liverpool and London. The organisation has since been working with the University of Liverpool on analysing and understanding the effects of the project, but an internal evaluation noted among the outcomes reduced agitation, improved mood and concentration and better social interaction. Many of the carers who took part in the pilots have subsequently approached the Reader about training to run their own groups. It’s the enthusiasm of individuals that explains why Get into Reading has grown so dramatically since the publication of Blake Morrison’s Guardian article on the project in January 2008, Jane says. ‘After the article hundreds of people got in touch with me to say, “I want to do this”. That’s why we set up the training programme in 2008. It’s grown because of individual people just really wanting to make it happen.’ The project has spread across the country from its base in Liverpool and the Reader has even been commissioned to run projects in Australia and Denmark. The organisation has also developed a partnership with the University of Liverpool’s new multi- disciplinary Centre for Research into Reading, Information and Linguistic Systems, run by Jane’s husband Philip Davis, former head of the university’s School of Arts. The work of the centre is to ensure that what goes on in

40 ADULTS LEARNING SPRING 2012