Some of the documents have been extracted for convenience, so they may not have all of the images with them they had on their home site; others are just reference to the home site where I thought that was more useful to the subgroup.

The consensus is that a personalised crisis card is by definition not a general boiler plate thing. A proforma laminated card is therefore likely to be infeasible. They suggest proceeding by means of a menu from which a client or user can select or can be guided to indicate their choices and priorities. the best of these so far is from Kings College, and another from Mary Elland Copeland is quite useful. Mary's site has a lot of other helpful material.

Two other general treatments, but perhaps a little basic are a new document from Mental Health media and an extract from the Hillingdon Mental Health Manual. Hillingdon have their own card, which I am trying to get from a friend I know there.

Redbridge Mind has now closed down but I have some details from colleagues on the Redbridge card. It was thought to be a drawback that it would not fit in a wallet, being slightly larger than a credit card. One consultant was against the cards as he felt people could be victimised if the wrong people saw it.

The Covingdon card must be quite good if they have sent out 725,000 copies of it. But I haven't rung the USA to get it, and I can't find it on the web site.

The Brent User Group had a card in 1992 but I haven't located them yet. I've got a call out to Brent Social Services.

Lewisham Mental Health Group have an associate group actually called Crisis Card so they look good. I've emailed them for info.

A 1999 study by the Institute of Psychiatry proved the efficacy of crisis cards and research is still going on.

Tony Heyes 26th Sept 2001