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In the last issue we included a report on the ‘Strategies for Living’ research done by Alison Faulkner and her colleagues at the Mental Health Foundation. This found that many service users are turning to self‐help and complementary therapies to improve their sense of wellbeing and find a spiritual dimension to life. Many people have mental ill health triggered by and interwoven with terrible life events, which they struggle to make sense of and cope with. Our survivor contributor has such a story and has found hope, meaning and purpose in ‘alternative’ or complementary therapies. Her ambition is to help others find ways of improving the quality of their lives in ways that are not generally available in mainstream mental health services.

This article provides a discussion of the value of user‐led research in mental health, with particular reference to the Strategies for Living project at the Mental Health Foundation.

The physical health needs of people with mental health problems are currently under addressed and often ignored, both in training and in practice. The PRIMROSE trial intervention was designed to remedy that – focusing in particular on risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD). This paper describes how people with experience of using mental health services and carers contributed to the development of the PRIMROSE intervention. It draws out key messages for educators, researchers and practitioners.

Using a case study approach the paper outlines how a Third sector organisation supported the study team in setting up a Lived Experience Advisory Panel (LEAP), drawing on a pre-existing model and recent thinking about service user and carer involvement in research. It is described how the approach sought to engage wider involvement of people with an interest in CVD while also offering more focused input into specifically the development of the trial intervention.

An innovative approach was taken whereby a large LEAP, comprising 27 service users and carers, was supporting the development of the study mainly through e-mail and web updates and feedback, while a sub-group of the LEAP, with eight members, met three times and had a focus on inputting ideas into the development of the intervention. The creation of a LEAP proved helpful to the project, resulting in an enhanced and more relevant intervention – summed up in a series of eleven recommendations. Appointment of an independent chair of the sub-group proved invaluable and there is learning from this project for other similar initiatives.

This study has value for others who are developing practice interventions. A range of suggestions were made which will have relevance for training, ensuring that physical health issues are not ignored. There is much to learn too from the process of this project, for the involvement of service users and carers in research, education and in practice development.

On the 13 March 2000 the Mental Health Foundation launched a groundbreaking report based on a three‐year investigation of the ways in which people with mental health problems manage their own mental health. The project was funded by the National Lottery Charities Board.

This paper aims to explore the extensive roots of peer support in mental health, and to identify the values and principles that the authors wish to hold onto as choices are made as to how and whether to engage with formal peer support within the National Health Service (NHS).

The authors attempt to cover the ground of three types of peer support, but with an emphasis on informal peer support and participation in consumer or peer‐run groups as providing the roots for the third more formal type, which is often known as intentional peer support (IPS).

Professionalisation of peer support may endanger the equality that lies at the root of peer support relationships. Independence may also be compromised if peer support becomes just another part of mainstream services. Whilst an individual/personalised approach to providing services has many strengths, one must be careful not to remove all opportunity for service users to meet together, support one another, plan and campaign.

The findings suggest that commissioners of services should aim for a plurality of peer support and be careful to ensure that informal peer support is flourishing as an essential basis for more formal peer support.

The paper shows that, with an increased interest in providing peer support as part of mainstream services, it is important to stress the basic values and principles that underpin informal service‐user led peer support.

Commissioned as part of a Joseph Rowntree Foundation scoping programme, this consultation aims to explore the views of disabled people and service users about risk.

The consultation reached nine individuals and one focus group, reaching a total of 17 disabled people and service users. Their views were supplemented by the literature.

The landscape of risk and rights is highly complex. Disabled people and service users have quite different concerns about risk to those of the professionals and the regulatory bodies acting on their behalf. Many people talked of the fear of losing their independence, of asserting their rights and the fear of powerlessness in the face of bureaucracy and (sometimes) uncaring staff.

The profile of rights needs to be raised in an accessible and acceptable way: it is necessary to make the language of rights more commonplace. There is a particular need to reach into mental health and residential care services to find ways of enabling people to have their rights realised. The report has implications for risk assessment and risk management as well as for the regulatory bodies responsible in adult social care. Raising awareness among professionals and policy makers about the risks that service users themselves fear and experience should demonstrate just how important it is that the people whose risk is under consideration are involved in the process.

This paper highlights the views of users of adult social care about risk; their views have rarely been documented.

The purpose of this paper is to review current perspectives on peer support in mental health informed by service user perspectives.

The paper is informed by a literature review and consultations with five groups of service users engaged in different forms of peer support.

The findings suggest that there are many benefits to service users from engaging in peer support. These include: shared identity; development and sharing of skills; increased confidence; improved mental health and wellbeing; and the potential for challenging stigma and discrimination. Most difficulties encountered were associated with “intentional peer support”, where service users are employed as peer support workers – these included role conflict, setting boundaries, and ensuring adequate training and support. A key theme that divided opinion was the degree to which peer support should be “professionalised” as part of statutory services.

The findings suggest that it is vital to acknowledge the different views about peer support that arise in different service user and voluntary sector groups: views about such core issues as payment, equality, and professionalisation. Ultimately, peer support arises from people wanting to create their own support networks; any plans to formalise it from within statutory services need to acknowledge that pre‐existing grassroots expertise.

Recent developments mean that peer support, which originated from the grassroots of service user experience, has taken a new direction through becoming incorporated into statutory services. This paper looks at some of the benefits and pitfalls of these developments informed by the views of service users.