Phil Ruthen

POLICY ADVISOR AND 'SURVIVOR' RESEARCHER

An independent writer, with extensive organisational development experience and a former ‘user of mental health services'.Since leaving the mental health system he has seen and experienced what low expectations and a paternalistic approach can do in hindering individual’s personal development and quality of life.

Phil has been involved over a period of approximately fifteen years working with people within disabled people’s civil rights movements and the voluntary sector in a variety of paid and voluntary roles, including their access to the arts and literature. He has also had the privilege to be a Non-Executive Director with SELDOC - the South East London Doctors’ Cooperative, an organisation providing out-of-hours and unscheduled GP services across south east, and from September 2016, south west London. Phil served terms on the organisation’s Clinical Governance Committee, and Finance Committee.