The Voices of the Cassel centenary project has won the BIG South London’s Health & Care Collaboration of the Year award with partners Roehampton University and On The Record.

Roehampton’s Tony Paraskeva (School of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences) and Yeva Feldman (School of Psychology) collaborated  with The Cassel Hospital Charitable Trust (CHCT) and On the Record on the Voices of The Cassel project.

The project is based on research into the Cassel’s archives, piloting new mental health and wellbeing services. It also created an 80-minute  historical documentary produced by On the Record’s Laura Mitchison (researcher & oral historian), with a funding contribution from BIG and Roehampton.

As winners of the Health & Care Collaboration of the Year, the CHCT and On the Record thanked their Roehampton partners for their support.

This collaboration involved the production of filmed oral histories of the organisation and its patients and significant archival research. The work  has also formed the basis of potential for new income generating streams for the  Charity, as well as enhancing research activity for Roehampton and across the collaborating partners.

The film considerably exceeded the original idea of a short film – instead becoming an 80-minute documentary featuring a fascinating array of recollections and memories by past patients and staff.

CHCT Chair Maureen Miller said : “The project has considerably exceeded our expectations. The resulting film is very powerful and emotive. And the  research work to unlock this unique archive will create a new archival repository of insights into the development of mental health. It will be an invaluable resource to draw on for future academic and professional mental health  training and workshops and  can be adapted to a wide range of  audiences.”