Service user involvement in mental health research poses specific challenges for both researchers and service users. The book describes the relevant background and principles underlying the concept of service user involvement in mental health research, providing relevant practical advice on how to engage with service users and how to build and maintain research collaboration on a professional level. It highlights common practical problems in service user involvement, based on experience from various countries with different social policies and suggests ways to avoid pitfalls and common difficulties. The book helps researchers decide which level of service user involvement will be adequate for their research activities and what will be feasible in view of the practicalities involved. It is also ideal for service users who are interested in becoming involved in research, providing relevant background information on the possibilities of involvement in professional research.
Handbook of Service User Involvement in Mental Health Research In recent years, the need for patient and public involvement in medical research has been accepted around the world. Patient groups are gaining power and demanding their right to influence the direction of research, while funding bodies are increasingly regarding patient involvement as a requirement for grant applications. However, current knowledge on how to involve service users in mental health research is sparse and dispersed. This book provides clear guidance on best practice in this area, with practical advice based on experience in countries around the world. Handbook of Service User Involvement in Mental Health Research describes the background and principles underlying the concept of service user involvement in mental health research; it provides relevant practical advice on how to engage with service users and how to build and maintain research collaboration on a professional level. The book highlights common practical problems in service user involvement, suggesting ways to avoid pitfalls and common difficulties. Combines the theoretical aspects of service user involvement in research with specific examples, as well as with general practical guidelines Represents the views of service users, in a powerful combination with the views of other mental health professionals Considers the different perspectives and needs of the stakeholders concerned Includes a step by step guide on best practice in successful service user involvement. Handbook of Service User Involvement in Mental Health Research is written for psychiatrists and other medical professionals managing people with psychiatric disorders, as well as for researchers in the mental health field who want to develop projects with service user involvement. It is vital reading for funding bodies requesting service user involvement, and – importantly – is written for those service users who are interested in becoming involved in research.
Written cooperatively by service users and academics, this book conveys a vital connection between recovery and involvement, offering a framework of values and helpful strategies to promote meaningful user participation.
Mental health has long been perceived as a taboo subject in the UK, so much so that mental health services have been marginalised within health and social care. There is even more serious neglect of the specific issues faced by different ethnic minorities. This book uses the rich narratives of the recovery journeys of Chinese mental health service users in the UK – a perceived ‘hard-to-reach group’ and largely invisible in mental health literature – to illustrate the myriad ways that social inequalities such as class, ethnicity and gender contribute to service users' distress and mental ill-health, as well as shape their subsequent recovery journeys. Recovery, Mental Health and Inequality contributes to the debate about the implementation of ‘recovery approach’ in mental health services and demonstrates the importance of tackling structural inequalities in facilitating meaningful recovery. This timely book would benefit practitioners and students in various fields, such as nurses, social workers and mental health postgraduate trainees.
User involvement is now official policy throughout the health and social care system. Does this mean that user involvement practices are unproblematic? Has it lost its radical edge as it has become an accepted part of service delivery, research and policy making? This important text offers a critical stocktake of the state of user involvement, comprising contributions from both user activists and leading academics. The contributors consider different contexts in which involvement is taking place, both in the groups involved and the activities they are engaged in, and includes different and sometimes conflicting perspectives on issues such as whether we should measure the impact of involvement. This valuable collection will be a crucial resource for students in health and social care and in social work, for researchers developing participative research practice, and for user activists seeking to learn how others have developed distinctive ways of challenging professional perspectives. Book jacket.
Occupational Therapy Evidence in Practice for Mental Health is an accessible and informative guide to the application of theory and the evidence-base to contemporary clinical practice. Fully updated throughout, chapters cover a range of mental health issues, approaches and settings, including service user and carer involvement, group work, services for older people, interventions, forensic mental health, and managing depression. Key Features Written by an expert author team, drawing on a wide range of evidence, service contexts, national policy and legislation. Focus on person-centred practice in mental health services. Each chapter also contains a variety of learning features, including task boxes, reflective questions and further readings, to aid understanding and demonstrate the use of evidence to inform clinical decision-making. The second edition of this easy-to-read and practical textbook is an ideal resource for occupational therapy students, clinical practitioners, and anyone looking for a concise, accessible guide to evidence-based practice and how it informs occupational therapy in mental health.
This book brings together two bodies of knowledge - wellbeing and recovery. Wellbeing and 'positive' approaches are increasingly influencing many areas of society. Recovery in mental illness has a growing empirical evidence base. For the first time, overlaps and cross-fertilisation opportunities between the two bodies of knowledge are identified. International experts present innovations taking place within the mental health system, which include wellbeing-informed new therapies, e-health approaches and peer-led recovery communities. State-of-the-art applications of wellbeing to the wider community are also described, across education, employment, parenting and city planning. This book will be of interest to anyone connected with the mental health system, especially people using and working in services, and clinical and administrators leaders, and those interested in using research from the mental health system in the wider community.
Winner of Medical Journalists’ Association Specialist Readership Award 2010 Recovery is widely endorsed as a guiding principle of mental health policy. Recovery brings new rules for services, e.g. user involvement and person-centred care, as well as new tools for clinical collaborations, e.g. shared decision making and psychiatric advance directives. These developments are complemented by new proposals regarding more ethically consistent anti-discrimination and involuntary treatment legislation, as well as participatory approaches to evidence-based medicine and policy. Recovery is more than a bottom up movement turned into top down mental health policy in English-speaking countries. Recovery integrates concepts that have evolved internationally over a long time. It brings together major stakeholders and different professional groups in mental health, who share the aspiration to overcome current conceptual reductionism and prognostic negativism in psychiatry. Recovery is the consequence of the achievements of the user movement. Most conceptual considerations and decisions have evolved from collaborations between people with and without a lived experience of mental health problems and the psychiatric service system. Many of the most influential publications have been written by users and ex-users of services and work-groups that have brought together individuals with and without personal experiences as psychiatric patients. In a fresh and comprehensive look, this book covers definitions, concepts and developments as well as consequences for scientific and clinical responsibilities. Information on relevant history, state of the art and transformational efforts in mental health care is complemented by exemplary stories of people who created through their lives and work an evidence base and direction for Recovery. This book was originally published in German. The translation has been fully revised, references have been amended to include the English-language literature and new material has been added to reflect recent developments. It features a Foreword by Helen Glover who relates how there is more to recovery than the absence or presence of symptoms and how health care professionals should embrace the growing evidence that people can reclaim their lives and often thrive beyond the experience of a mental illness. Comments on German edition: "It is fully packed with useful information for practitioners, is written in jargon free language and has a good reading pace." Theodor Itten, St. Gallen, Switzerland and Hamburg, Germany "This book is amazingly positive. It not only talks about hope, it creates hope. Its therapeutic effects reach professional mental health workers, service users, and carers alike. Fleet-footed and easily understandable, at times it reads like a suspense novel." Andreas Knuf, pro mente sana, Switzerland '"This is the future of psychiatry"' cheered a usually service-oriented manager after reading the book. We might not live to see it.' Ilse Eichenbrenner, Soziale Psychiatrie, Germany
In examining how our identity shapes the knowledge we produce, Mental health service users in research considers ways of 'doing research' which bring multiple understandings together effectively, and explains the sociological use of autobiography and its relevance.
