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The purpose of this paper is to look at peer support in the context of broader communities.

It builds on the author’s experience working with the Mental Health Foundation of developing delivering and evaluating several self-management and peer support initiatives in a variety of settings with a range of different peer groups. It will consider what constitutes a peer and a community, and explore the notion of community solutions for community problems.

Peer support in community settings has the capacity to address social isolation, build skills and self-esteem and give individuals a better quality of life – it can also add value to whole communities and reframe the way entire groups are considered within them. It has the ability to be both more accessible and less stigmatising and thus reach more people. This also offers community based peer support as a contributor to preventing the deterioration of mental health and potentially reducing the impact of mental ill-health.

The author needs to think more in terms of whole community and get better at improving how the author measures and articulates this community benefit. This will allow us to make better decisions about how best to apply resources for long term whole community gain. Peer support and peer leadership needs to be at the heart of this process.

This paper places a familiar approach in a different setting placing peer support firmly outside services and within comunities.

The purpose of this paper is to review the Mental Health Foundation’s experiences designing, implementing and evaluating peer-focused self-management programmes. Through a discussion of barriers and good practice, it outlines ways to be successful in making such projects work to improve mental health and wellbeing among at-risk populations.

A total of 11 Mental Health Foundation programmes implemented over the past ten years were reviewed through reading manuals and publications and interviewing programme managers. Key data were extracted from each programme to analyse trends in aims, outcomes and recommendations.

Through a focus on peer-work, programmes taught individuals from a variety of societal sectors self-management skills to effectively deal with life stressors. Through sharing in non-judgmental spaces and taking ownership of programme design and content, individuals realised improvements in wellbeing and goal achievement.

Good practice, barriers and recommendations can be taken from this review and applied to future peer-focused self-management programmes. By better embedding quantitative and qualitative evaluations into programme development and implementation, programmes can add to the evidence base and effectively target needs.

This review lays out valuable experience on an innovative community service paradigm and supports the evidence on effectiveness of peer-focused self-management programmes with a variety of group populations.

The purpose of this paper is to describe service user involvement, explain some of the key issues that define, affect or protect mental health in later life and show how involvement may contribute to better mental health in later life.

The paper reviews existing definitions of involvement and mental health in later life; provides a more detailed review of some examples of involvement at a range of levels and illustrates how these could have a positive impact on mental health.

Active involvement and engagement at all levels offers significant opportunities for older people to protect and improve their own mental health and the mental health of society as a whole.

This research does not set out to promote any particular intervention or involvement technique. The examples given have been evaluated in a variety of ways.

Service user involvement should be considered as an important potential contributor to mental health in later life.

The paper encourages people in later life to be considered as a community resource rather than a problem that needs to be solved.

This paper brings together existing research with a focus on the relationship between involvement and individual and collective mental health.

The purpose of this paper is to test whether incorporating a 20-week Kundalini yoga programme into a residential home for children improves well-being outcomes.

This is a mixed methods feasibility study. Feasibility was assessed through recruitment and retention rates as well as participants’ self-report perceptions on social inclusion, mental health and well-being and through semi-structured interviews on the benefits of the study. Mutual recovery entailed that children in care (CIC), youth practitioners and management participated together in the Kundalini yoga sessions.

The study initially enrolled 100 per cent of CIC and 97 per cent (29/30) of eligible staff. Attendance was low with an average rate of four sessions per participant (SD=3.7, range 0-13). All the participants reported that the study was personally meaningful and experienced both individual (e.g. feeling more relaxed) and social benefits (e.g. feeling more open and positive). Pre- and post-yoga questionnaires did not show any significant effects. Low attendance was associated with the challenges faced by the children’s workforce (e.g. high levels of stress, low status, profile and pay) and insufficient consultation and early involvement of stakeholders on the study implementation process.

Because of the chosen research approach (i.e. feasibility study) and low attendance rate, the research results may lack generalisability. Therefore, further research with larger samples including a control or comparison group to pilot similar research questions is mandatory.

This study has generated a number of valuable guiding principles and recommendations that might underpin the development of any future intervention for CIC and staff working in children’s homes.

The concept of togetherness and mutuality within residential spaces is discussed in the paper.

The effects of Kundalini yoga have not been reported before in any peer-review publications. This paper fulfils an identified need (i.e. poor outcomes among CIC and residential staff) and shows how movement and creative practices can support the concept of mutual recovery.

How far is our position within the mental health system ‐ as service user, survivor, carer or practitioner, for example ‐ fixed and defines what we can achieve? Is ‘expertise by experience’ something we all have and can share, irrespective of position, even when it may differ dramatically? Toby Williamson, previously head of policy at the Mental Health Foundation and an experienced practitioner, and David Crepaz‐Keay, senior policy advisor responsible for public and patient involvement at the Foundation and well known particularly within the survivor movement, debate these issues in an open and frank exchange of emails.

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of a peer-led self-management intervention for people with severe mental disorders.

This is a one-arm longitudinal study without control group. In all, 262 adults with (self-reported) severe mental disorders, who have used secondary mental health services and were living in the community were evaluated at three time points (baseline, six and 12 months). Socio-demographic data were collected at baseline. Wellbeing (Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Wellbeing Scale), functional living skills (Health Promoting Lifestyle Profile II) and service use (Client Service Receipt Inventory) data were assessed over time.

Self-management for people with severe mental disorders improved wellbeing and health-promoting lifestyles. After an increase in the short term, costs appeared to decrease in the longer term, although this change was not statistically significant. Due to the lack of a control group, the authors are unable to attribute those changes to the intervention only. Nevertheless, the self-management intervention appears to warrant further attention on both wellbeing and economic grounds.

Self-management may facilitate recovery, helping to support people with severe mental disorders at no additional cost. Given recent emphasis on recovery, peer workers and self-management, this peer-led self-management approach for people with severe mental disorders appears to have potential.

The purpose of this paper is to establish the effectiveness of self-management training as an intervention for people using secondary mental health services.

A self-management and peer support intervention was developed and delivered by secondary mental health service users to 262 people with psychiatric diagnoses living in the community. Data on wellbeing and health-promoting behaviour were collected at three time points (baseline, six, and 12 months).

Participants reported significant improvements in wellbeing and health-promoting lifestyle six and 12 months after self-management training. Peer-led self-management shows potential to improve long-term health outcomes for people with psychiatric diagnoses.

Due to the lack of a control group, the positive changes cannot definitively be attributed to the intervention. Other limitations were reliance on self-report measures, and the varying numbers of completers at three time points. These issues will be addressed in future studies.

The evaluation demonstrated the effectiveness of self-management training for people with psychiatric diagnoses, suggesting self-management training may bring significant wellbeing gains for this group.

This study represents a first step in the implementation of self-management approaches into mental health services. It demonstrates the feasibility of people with psychiatric diagnoses developing and delivering an effective intervention that complements existing services.

This is the first study to investigate the effectiveness of a self-management training programme developed and delivered by mental health service users in the UK.