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The assessment and management of risk is central to contemporary mental health practice. The emergence of recovery has contributed to demands for more service user centred approaches to risk. The purpose of this paper is to examine the potential of narrative as a framework for understanding risk and safety in mental health care.

Narrative theory is adopted to structure a debate examining the potential role of a narrative approach to risk assessment and inform future practice.

There is a danger that even within services, people with mental health problems are understood in terms of their riskiness perpetuating an image of service users as “dangerous others”. This is confounded by a disconnection with individual context in the risk assessment process. Narrative centralizes the persons’ subjective experience and provides a contemporaneous self-account of their identity. This situates risk within a context and creates possibility for greater understanding of coping, strengths and resilience.

There has been a call for new ways of working with risk in mental health which facilitate safety and recovery. There is limited examination of what this might actually look like. This paper presents narrative as an approach that may achieve these aims.

There is growing evidence of the contribution participatory arts practice may make towards mental health recovery. The purpose of this paper is to examine this phenomenon by critically reviewing the relevant literature in the light of the CHIME theoretical framework that identifies the components and processes of mental health recovery.

Using a critical realist review method, the study draws upon foundational social and psychological theories offering an analysis of the identified mental health recovery processes in relation to participatory arts activities for people that use mental health services.

This review identifies themes that permeate the categories of CHIME and are widely delivered by participatory arts in mental health projects. These themes define the essence of a recovery approach of care and are delivered, sometimes uniquely, through arts in mental health work.

Whilst mental health outcomes are frequently sought in participatory arts projects, there is sparse theoretical evidence to under-pin such work. This review provides potential recovery outcomes through a theoretical inquiry into participatory arts and psychosocial theories.

Refugee and asylum-seeking women are particularly vulnerable to experiencing mental health difficulties during the perinatal period, with social factors compounding these experiences. Research is limited into the mental health needs of perinatal women who are refugees or seeking asylum. The purpose of this paper is to examine the best available international evidence on this topic and to discuss the findings with relevance to the UK context.

A modified population, intervention, comparison, outcome was used to formulate the research question and search strategy. Databases searched were: cumulative index of nursing and allied health literature, Medline, PsychINFO, Web of Science and Scopus. Guided by the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-analysis framework, results were screened against an inclusion and exclusion criteria. Each study underwent a quality assessment in which they were appraised using the mixed methods appraisal tool.

Eight papers were retrieved, and a thematic analysis was conducted. Two major themes were identified: mental health needs and social influences. Refugees and asylum seekers are likely to have experienced trauma as reasons for migration. Post-migration stressors, including hostility and dispersal from social networks, lead to cumulative trauma. These each add to the mental health needs of perinatal refugee and asylum-seeking women that cannot be ignored by policymakers, health and social care services or professionals.

Refugee and asylum-seeking women are particularly vulnerable to mental health difficulties in the perinatal period. Stressors accumulated pre-, during and post-migration to the host country exacerbate mental distress. In the UK, the treatment of this population may be detrimental to their mental health, prompting the need for greater critical awareness of the socioecological environment that refugee or asylum-seeking women experience.

Stigma associated with mental health problems is widespread in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA). Consequently, this may prevent many Saudi people from accessing the mental health-care services and support they need. The purpose of this study is to consider how stigma affects people needing to access mental health services in the KSA. To achieve this aim, this study reviews the knowledge base concerning stigma and mental health in KSA and considers specific further research necessary to increase the knowledge and understanding in this important area.

This review examines the relevant literature concerning mental health stigma and related issues in KSA using the Arksey and O'Malley and the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses frameworks. As a scoping review, it has used a systematic approach in literature searching. The results of the search were then thematically analysed and the themes were then discussed in light of the concepts of stigma and mental health.

Stigma around mental health impedes access to care, the nature of care and current clinical practice in the KSA. The voices of those with mental health issues in KSA are almost entirely unrepresented in the literature.

The review identifies that mental health stigma and cultural beliefs about mental health in KSA may act as barriers to accessing services. The voice of mental health service users in KSA remains largely unheard. If public discussion of mental health issues can increase, people’s experiences of accessing services may be improved.

This study aims to investigate how British Pakistani people talk about their social identity, in the context of mental health, and how this shapes their experiences and perceptions of care delivered by the National Health Service, UK.

Eight narrative interviews were conducted among members of the Pakistani community living in a city in the UK. The data were analyzed using a narrative analysis approach using “social identity” as a theoretical lens.

Considering Pakistani service users as a single social entity, and responding with generic approaches in meeting their mental health needs, may not be helpful in achieving equitable treatment. Study participants reject a simple conceptualization of race and ethnicity and how a response based upon stereotypes is woefully inadequate. The study revealed that people from one ethnic or national background cannot be assumed to have a fixed social identity.

This study broadens understanding of how people from a single ethnic background may construct and view their social identities markedly different to others from the same ethnic group. This has implications for service providers in understanding how their clients’ social identity is treated and understood in practice.

Based in a deprived inner city area in Nottingham, Art in Mind aims to improve individual health and well‐being and to raise mental health awareness by encouraging self‐expression through the arts and participation in community activities. Theo Stickley, Willow Merryweather and Paul Leighton describe the power of the arts to change minds and lives.

This paper reports on the development of an educational programme of work that is a collaboration between nursing educationalists and service users. Attention is given to the philosophical dimension of the work. The project is considered in the light of four related components that formed the basis of the enterprise, namely: philosophy, organisation, research and teaching (PORT). The perceptions of those who have participated in the project are commented upon. It is argued that in order to achieve social and mediation change within this educational setting, evidence of the mutual acceptance and understanding of difference has to be present. This can establish common ground between philosophical approaches. These approaches emerge from practice, from how people interact with each other, and not the other way around.

Service user involvement is called for at every level of NHS delivery in the United Kingdom (UK). This article describes a model of service user participation in the development of mental health nurse curricula in a UK university. Using a research model of participatory action research, the Participation In Nurse Education (PINE) project has now become mainstream in the mental health branches at the university. Service users led the design and implementation of the teaching sessions and led the data collection and analysis. Research participants were the service user trainers and the student nurses who were involved in being taught in the early stages of the project. The benefits of the work to both trainers and students are identified as well as some of the difficulties.

This article aims to focus on the role of lived‐experience in mental health education and practice as perceived by undergraduate students.

A small qualitative survey was conducted among Social Work and Mental Health Nursing students who were asked about their own experiences of mental ill health and its possible impact on their practice.

The article is contextualised in the concept of “Wounded Healers” as a number of students had previously (and were currently) experiencing mental distress.

There is a strong sense that students believe that their personal experiences inform their practice, and that this may assist them in empathising constructively with service users, within the boundaries of a professional relationship.

The arts and health agenda has experienced considerable expansion in the UK in recent years, against a backdrop of increasing social inequality and rising incidence of mental health problems. This paper explores the role of community arts in combating social and mental health inequalities as exemplified by one particular project, Art in Mind, in Nottingham, which is funded by England's New Deal for Communities programme and is designed to promote mental health. In describing Art in Mind's conceptualisation and implementation, attention is given to the importance of developing community networks that are designed to build social capital for participating groups and individuals, in order to combat health and social inequalities.