3. Hutchinson.A & Lovell.A (2013) Participatory Action Research: Moving beyond the Mental Health ‘Service User’ Identity. Journal of Psychiatric and Mental Health Nursing 20(7) 641-9 DOI: 10.1111/jpm.12001 (original) (raw)
Related papers
2014
Abstract This thesis is my autoethnographic account as I pursue a career as a Service User Representative with the Dorset Mental Health Forum over several years leading up to 2010. This is a period of change in both the social care and health worlds as they impact on to people suffering from mental distress. In this period are introduced Personal Budgets and a three-year pilot scheme to look at the viability of rolling out Personal Health Budgets, in which Dorset is selected as one of 20 sites nationally. There is also a change of government from a Labour administration to a coalition of the Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties, but this does not seem to have changed the planned modernisation of both social care provision and healthcare provision started by the outgoing Labour government. Also in this period we see the wide-ranging revision of the Mental Health Act 1983. My original contribution to knowledge is in describing the development of a service user representative model that works well in Dorset, UK. This thesis is not about the history and development of the mental health service user involvement but I do offer a précis of the history of service user representation for those unfamiliar with it. This thesis is laid out in roughly chronological order. I try to show how I changed my views with the help of other people over the period. I also try to explain what it is that ails me. The reason I do this is to paint a picture of a person who is in general "normal" but suffers from mental disorders that sometimes alter the way he sees the world. It is with this backdrop that I ply my trade of being representative of and to other mental health service users. I lead the reader from a consideration of method and methodology and ethics, through the precursors of my mental illness, to how that illness has been treated by the National Health Service, and how it impacts on my role. The main way that I do this is by offering a vignette of my life and then immediately afterwards analysing that vignette in the light of emergent themes. In this way, I ensure that the emergent themes are themselves based in a reality that can be accessed to some degree by the reader. There were challenges along the way including personal ones, such as having to take time out from my studies to attend courses of psychological treatment and having several heart attacks leading to hospitalisation, as well as the usual ones of finding people to contribute to my research. I end this thesis by offering a model that service users may find illuminating when setting up their own service user representation services.
Social Work and Social Sciences Review
In a qualitative study, long-term mental health service users shared their views on the concept of ‘participation’ as shaped by their personal histories of contact with mental health services in Ireland. Adopting a narrative methodology, the study participants were asked to draw on their experiences with mental health services to illustrate their general views on participation by service users in mental health care contexts.In this study, the research participants recounted positive experiences of participation in which their expressed views regarding their symptoms and treatment needs were incorporated into the service responses they received. The data revealed that service users perceived open and inclusive communication by service providers as an important factor in optimising their ability to participate in help-seeking, diagnosis and treatment plans. However, the study also illuminated the chilling effect on participation when service users’ views were not heeded or acknowledge...
Service User Involvement, Authority and the 'Expert-by-Experience' in Mental Health
This article re-examines the politics of engagement of the UK mental health service user and survivor movement by focusing upon the mental health 'expert-by-experience'. Using qualitative data, I illustrate how the service user and survivor movement is able to draw upon an experiential authority that is rooted in practices of self-help and peer-support. I do this by bringing an experimentalist reading of self-help and peer-support practices into dialogue with a model of traditional authority. As such, the personal can be linked up to the political in ways that emphasise the value of self-help and support practices as forms of political participation, while highlighting modes of engagement that are predicated on the capacities, rather than the needs, of the movement.
Health Expectations
This paper explores the methodological aspects of a user-led study investigating service user experiences of targeted violence and abuse (often called 'hate crime'). 1 'Keeping Control' was a 16-month qualitative study, undertaken in the context of adult safeguarding reforms in England. The study was partly undertaken to inform the implementation of 'The Care Act 2014: Statutory Guidance on Making Safeguarding Personal' England. 2[updated] These new policy approaches to adult safeguarding under the Care Act 2014 determine that safeguarding is 'everybody's business' and that it should become more outcome-focused and person-centred. 3 By collecting data on service user views and experiences, the research sought to address a gap in research and practice knowledge relating to targeted violence, abuse and hostility against people with mental health problems. In this paper, we discuss the significance of the design and methodology used for this study, with a particular focus on the interviews with service users, informed by reflections from both participants and researchers. The research was both user-led and carried out in collaboration with practitioner academics and survivor researchers in a form of co-production. Our aim with this paper was to inform researchers, practitioners and policymakers about the value of service user leadership in co-productive research, particularly for a highly sensitive and potentially distressing topic. The intention was to open up both real and virtual spaces for dialogue to take place between
User and carer involvement in mental health services: from rhetoric to science
The British Journal of Psychiatry, 2003
The Department of Health has emphasised the need for a patient-centred National Health Service (NHS), and the involvement of users and carers in mental health services is often a policy recommendation (Mental Health Task Force User Group, 1995; NHS Health Advisory Service, 1997; Department of Health, 1999a,b, 2001). The Patients' Forum and Consumers in NHS Research are established national bodies concerned with stakeholder involvement. The Commission for Patient and Public Involvement in Health was established in 2003.
Verity and I; or: Bureaucratic Control And The Limits Of Service User Participation In Mental Health
This paper takes a critical look at various attempts to 'involve' clients in mental health services in South Devon in 2007 with particular reference to staff training. Legislation and policy on participation, its implementation by commissioners and providers; is contrasted with the activities of users and the loosely affiliated networks they have formed. The success, or otherwise of Involvement activities is judged by how far the concerns of users have led to changes in the day to day behaviour of workers towards clients. It is argued that NHS management, by maintaining bureaucratic control over Involvement, effectively incorporates many participating users so preventing a collective response for real negotiation either over work practices, or for the upholding of rights as individual consumers. User networks can be seen as a reflection of the increasingly commercialised and fragmented organisations they seek to reform. A few users however, together with some workers, seek to influence outside formal bureaucratic structures by personal networking. The argument is illustrated with examples from my own experience as a 'user' of mental health services.
Health expectations : an international journal of public participation in health care and health policy, 2015
User involvement and recovery are now widely used terms within the mental health policy, research and practice discourse. However, there is a question mark about the impact these ideas have in everyday practice. Of interest is the degree of involvement in key transitions of care. In particular, admission to and discharge from acute inpatient mental health wards. To explore the nature of service user involvement in the admission and discharge process into and out of acute inpatient mental health care. A qualitative study using focus groups. One acute, inpatient mental health ward was the focus of the study. Seven uniprofessional focus group interviews were conducted with ward staff, community staff and service users (total number of participants = 52). Conventional, thematic qualitative techniques were used to analyse the data. The data analysed and presented in this article relate to the loss of the service user voice at the key transition points into and out of acute inpatient care...