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The “Team Tree” Professional Tree of Life intervention: development and evaluation within the acute inpatient psychiatric setting

Claire McDonald (Inpatient Psychology Service at the Maudsley Hospital, South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust, London, UK and is now based at The Chelsea Psychology Clinic, London, UK)
Jessica Townsend (Inpatient Psychology Service at the Maudsley Hospital, South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust, London, UK and now works for NHS Wales, UK)
Caitlin Gillespie (Staff Psychology Team, Department of Occupational Health at King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, London, UK)

Mental Health Review Journal

ISSN: 1361-9322

Article publication date: 13 June 2024

Issue publication date: 9 July 2024

77

Abstract

Purpose

Mental health staff often experience significant levels of stress working in the acute psychiatric inpatient setting. Team-building interventions can mitigate stress in health-care settings, via improvements in team-cohesion, staff interactions and communication skills. The “Tree of Life” (ToL) is a specific narrative therapy approach which uses the metaphor of a tree to facilitate the construction and sharing of strength-based stories. This study aims to describe the development of and evaluate the feasibility, acceptability and staff experiences of the “Team Tree”, an adapted Professional ToL (PToL) intervention.

Design/methodology/approach

A one-hour, Professional ToL intervention was designed for multidisciplinary acute inpatient staff teams working within a psychiatric hospital in London, UK. A mixed methods approach was used to evaluate the feasibility, acceptability and staff experiences of the session.

Findings

Participants were 46 multidisciplinary staff (33 women; 13 men) working across four acute psychiatric wards. The intervention was feasible to deliver and was acceptable to participants. Results showed significant improvements in self-reported mental well-being and team-cohesiveness scores post-session.

Practical implications

Psychologists face myriad barriers in working with staff teams in the acute inpatient setting. The “Team Tree” intervention was both well received by staff and practical to deliver within the challenging environment of the acute ward.

Originality/value

This adaptation of the original PToL emerged from the author’s work with distressed inpatient teams with limited time resources. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first description of this intervention using a single tree metaphor to facilitate a reflective and creative session with health-care teams.

Keywords

Acknowledgements

At the time of this evaluation, two authors were working at South London & Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust. At submission, the lead author was clinical lead for staff support at King's College Hospital and is presently based at the Chelsea Psychology Clinic, London. We would like to acknowledge Drs Julie Frazer and Liz Matias for their work in developing the Tree of Life approach at SLaM.

Citation

McDonald, C., Townsend, J. and Gillespie, C. (2024), "The “Team Tree” Professional Tree of Life intervention: development and evaluation within the acute inpatient psychiatric setting", Mental Health Review Journal, Vol. 29 No. 2, pp. 224-238. https://doi.org/10.1108/MHRJ-06-2023-0029

Publisher

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Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2024, Emerald Publishing Limited

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