Image: Photo of ‘MN State Fair Gopher By Jake Ricabrd’ taken by Craig Chapman in December 2021. The sketch was published in “Through our Lens: An Art Collection Created By Those With Lived Experience. (Courtesy of Craig Chapman)
“Chatbook” created for NAVIGATE patients to express themselves through art
By Taylor Rivera
Before the pandemic, Craig Chapman went out into the community for his work helping students recover from a first episode of psychosis.
As a supported education and employment specialist for M Health Fairview Psychiatry’s NAVIGATE program, Chapman drove across the Twin Cities visiting schools, homes, workplaces or hospitals to advocate for the right to fair accommodations. Or sometimes his job was to simply talk with patients about their lives.
But when COVID-19 hit and interactions shifted to remote sessions, Chapman and a colleague saw something new. Within each square on the Zoom screen, he said, “there were a lot of creative individuals.”
So they decided to harness that creative potential. The result was an art project, a “chatbook” of art, poems, sculpture work, photography, song lyrics and more. A paperback version of the chatbook will be published soon, Chapman said.
The hope for the project was to reduce stigma for those treated by NAVIGATE, a program at M Health Fairview Psychiatry that helps people between the ages of 15 and 40 who experience symptoms of psychosis on the schizophrenia spectrum.
“If we can get enough copies out there and even make it available to folks at the University to show that despite the stigma surrounding their condition, these patients have the potential to express themselves in a meaningful way,” Chapman said. “The stigma doesn’t need to be there.”
The chatbook is one of the many strategies Chapman uses to advocate for his patients at NAVIGATE. The program uses a treatment approach developed with support from the National Institute of Mental Health that is clinically proven to help people resume normal life activities, including school, work and relationships, after psychosis, Chapman said.
Chapman has been with the program for five years after joining initially as an employment advocate.
“What drew me to this role was the client population, patients dealing with psychosis, specifically schizophrenia. I was drawn by the challenge of it all and making a difference,” he said.
Clinical care at the program is handled by therapists, psychiatrists and other clinicians. Chapman takes on other duties, such as providing those who are students with proper accommodations through disability resource centers, enrolling them in school and helping them maintain employment.
As such, he sees himself as a “jack of all trades,” where adaptation is the key to his job. He is an adviser, a consultant, a patient advocate and case manager for each of his patients depending on individual needs.
“It all really depends on the person,” Chapman said. “One day I might be meeting with a person that just had their first episode of psychosis maybe a month prior to me meeting with them. And in those situations, it’s really important to me to build a rapport with them, establishing trust so I can provide the proper care for them and even include their families.”
The chatbook, and its publication, is one example of the kind of advocacy that can spring from staying adaptable, Chapman said.
“We need to just keep doing this good work, and hopefully the awareness about these conditions and our program can spread,” he said.