Search results

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.

The aim of this study is to debunk the relationship between user participation practices and the development and success of information systems/information technology implementations. While most studies practically rely on how many participation activities are performed, the process through which users engage in user participation is not specified.

A mixed method approach was applied to study the research questions. A number of relationships were tested by survey data collected among 143 end-users and 49 interviews of employees of a large Dutch social insurance organization that implemented a new and integrative business process management (BPM) system.

The results show that specification of the participation context is of key importance for understanding the success of BPM implementation. Quantitative and qualitative analyses show that rich participation activities hold a stronger positive relationship with the BPM system development and implementation success than other participatory activities that only assist development or implementation. Furthermore, it is demonstrated that the updated theory of user participation by Markus and Mao can be turned into a useful instrument for measuring the different aspects of participation.

Most studies on user participation “only” measure how many participation activities were performed, and not how or why they were performed. Furthermore, the combination of qualitative and quantitative data and instruments resulted in a greater understanding of how exactly user participation was brought into practice and how the consequences of this practice were interrelated.

This article is an account of day service modernisation in Birmingham, describing how a range of innovative approaches to consultation with service users played a key role in reshaping day services in the city.

The quality of clinical care is a fundamental issue for both providers and recipients. It seems logical for the parties to collaborate. Increasing understanding of each other's values and perceived needs with commitment to incorporating both users' and clinicians' unique perspectives on clinical quality and effectiveness is a new venture which will further contribute to improving the quality of health care in the NHS.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the concept of community engagement within a public library context

The paper analyses selected literature discussing the concept of community engagement, focusing particularly on that considering community engagement activities in public libraries. Key issues are illustrated using examples from the literature and data from an interview‐based study of public library practitioners and policy makers.

The evidence suggests that the public library is being positioned as a key community resource. Community engagement in public libraries includes: making the library space available for community activities; working in partnership with the voluntary and community sector as well as with other public services; involving volunteers in the delivery of library services; activities to support community involvement in various levels of decision making. The paper concludes that library services have been quite effective at involving local people in the simpler forms of community engagement, such as surveying their opinions and consulting them on a range of issues, but they could do more to support the development of community capacity building. Activities focusing on work with reading and books could provide a useful way forward.

The paper provides empirical evidence of the views of key stakeholders towards community engagement activities in public libraries and should be of use to policy makers, practitioners, researchers and students of the public library sector.

The purpose of this paper is to put librarian use of instant messaging (IM) into a context of new media development. The paper aims to evaluate use of IM from findings in a research project of a Danish IM test.

The paper is grounded on findings related to the author's research of a specific Danish instant messaging test called Need2Know. With help of theories of communication patterns on the internet and of media theory of Web 2.0 IM is assessed as a tool for public libraries.

Instant messaging is an instance of expanding conversational and decentralized ways of communication on the internet. It is a useful communication tool to get in touch with young users, but it may be a waste of resources if the purpose primarily is to answer short questions of encyclopaedic facts. If the service is not anchored in an explicit library context or in library resources, the ask service easily will decay to a type of “living search machine” and not be part of a participatory culture promised by Web 2.0.

The paper assesses an instant messaging tool, Need2Know. The Need2Know service mirrors a traditional attitude to the relationship between users and library. Today users are able to find simple information themselves, and they are even able to disseminate and share this information through numerous social technologies.

Reports on management issues arising when authorities decide to close public library service points. The data come from two British Library funded projects. The first used a questionnaire survey of all local authorities in England and Wales to reveal the extent of reductions in access, followed by “before and after” studies of users affected. The second study investigated what authorities had learned from their experience of closing libraries. Twenty authorities that had closed libraries for financial reasons were surveyed and senior managers interviewed in ten of these. The study concludes that there are no criteria which can justify closure to library users. Consultation is often minimal due primarily to the short budget timescales. The process of closing libraries can be traumatic, the public backlash often deterring local politicians from agreeing to further cuts. A key issue in preventing the closure of libraries is the way authorities conventionally measure their success. Authorities need to recognise that the local library has a wide‐ranging social value, besides being a source of reading material. That value is identified by the research.

The majority of engineering failures occur because of surface initiated effects such as wear, corrosion and fatigue. Surface treatment/coatings (T/C) offer the potential to prevent failure and often to reduce cost. T/C selection is an important part of design for manufacture (DFM) spectrum and has been a very elusive activity to formalize. With the advent of knowledge‐based systems, provision of T/C selection assistance to the designer early on in the design process has become a practical reality. Reports the development of the TESS (Tribologically Engineered Surface Selection) expert system, which is concerned with the field of Surface T/C and their selection for optimum engineering design solutions. Introduces the T/C selection methodology and also describes the system developed. A logic‐based AI language, Prolog, has been used for the system development and versions of the system have been developed to run on the workstation and PC platforms. The initial work on the system was carried out with SERC support. Further developments are under way in this and other related design for manufacturability areas in this integrated design decision support approach.

The purpose of this paper is to describe the learning from a historical NHS vocational service development that focused on: mental health, employment and social inclusion – in an inner city area – involving service users, staff and commissioners.

It is a descriptive case study. A range of historical documents was content analysed and described through a first-person narrative: service user consultations, service specifications, audit records, outcome frameworks, internal service evaluations and published literature.

When vocational NHS service developments are grounded in what service users say helps them (person-centred, networked and co-ordinated approaches) the evidence indicates people can achieve their vocational goals.

The range of documents described is factual, although the learning insights from some of the service developments are based on personal judgements. The author was the responsible manager – personal bias is high. There is not enough robust evidence to warrant generalisation.

When employment and social inclusion are prioritised, as core business in NHS, outcomes and health impact can increase. Greater detail is needed from healthcare policy makers – focusing on who exactly should undertake this work and what the key commissioning social inclusion performance indicators are.

The bulk of literature on employment support focuses on promoting evidence from one model: individual placement and support. Evidence here indicates a broader range of activity (education, training and volunteering) can have value and health impact.

Increasing consumer consultation is a priority for those involved in health and social care research and practice, with promoting greater public participation being widely accepted as ‘a good thing’ (Reason, 1994: 3). However, whilst such consultation may improve the quality of research and practice, there is a need to recognise the considerable investment of time and energy that is required for success (Baxter et al., 2001). Given the extra resources needed, it is important to understand how consultation and user involvement can work to benefit all parties.This paper describes our experiences of working together on a research project exploring people's involvement in decision‐making processes when using care services in later life. When we started the project in March 2001 each of us could draw on a range of experiences that we hoped would make a valuable contribution. We have now worked together for over two years and this paper describes how our combined efforts have not only enhanced the overall quality of the research but also had personal benefits that we did not anticipate when we started out.