Is co-production working well in recovery colleges? Emergent themes from a systematic narrative review
The Journal of Mental Health Training, Education and Practice
ISSN: 1755-6228
Article publication date: 16 September 2021
Issue publication date: 3 January 2022
Abstract
Purpose
“Co-production” is a process in health and social care wherein service users and practitioners work in partnership. Recovery colleges (RCs) are educational establishments offering mental health education; a cornerstone feature is that courses are designed and delivered in parity by both mental health practitioners and “peers” – people with lived experience of mental illness. This paper aims to consider, through the identification of key themes, whether co-production within RCs is operating successfully.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper is a systematic review of qualitative literature. Relevant concept groups were systematically searched using three bibliographic databases: Medline, Social Care Online and Scopus. Articles were quality appraised and then synthesised through inductive thematic analysis and emergent trends identified.
Findings
Synthesis identified three key themes relating to the impact of co-production in RCs: practitioner attitudes, power dynamics between practitioners and service users, and RCs’ relationships with their host organisations. As a result of RC engagement, traditional practitioner/patient hierarchies were found to be eroding. Practitioners felt they were more person-centred. RCs can model good co-productive practices to their host organisations. The review concluded, with some caveats, that RC co-production was of high fidelity.
Originality/value
RC research is growing, but the body of evidence remains relatively small. Most of what exists examine the impact of RCs on individuals’ overall recovery and mental health; there is a limited empirical investigation into whether their flagship feature of parity between peers and practitioners is genuine.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
The systematic review was conducted as part of co-productive MSc programme at Ulster University, and the corresponding author’s course is fully funded by Northern Ireland’s Health and Social Care Board. At the time of the review, the corresponding author was Lead Peer Educator for the Innovation Recovery Project in Belfast, Northern Ireland, and based at Belfast Recovery College. Neither of these nor their hosts had any funding interests or other form of direct involvement in the systematic review.
Citation
Bester, K.L., McGlade, A. and Darragh, E. (2022), "Is co-production working well in recovery colleges? Emergent themes from a systematic narrative review", The Journal of Mental Health Training, Education and Practice, Vol. 17 No. 1, pp. 48-60. https://doi.org/10.1108/JMHTEP-05-2021-0046
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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