recovery through discovery

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recovery through discovery

• developing partners

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Our History

• Research Governance Framework (2002)
  highlighted the need for service user and carer
  involvement in ALL aspects of the research
  process
• DEVELOP - Service User and Carer Group who helped
  us devise our skills development programme
• ARISE - Accessible Research Involvement for
  Service Evaluation, was our first project. It
  gave us the experience we needed to set up
  developing partners. I suppose you could say we
  have ARISEN!

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recovery through discovery

• What we are
• DoH Funded Social Enterprise
• Company Ltd by Guarantee
• Workers Co-operative
• Employment for All
• The greatest barrier people face is not being
  given the chance to prove their effectiveness,
  (DoH, 2006)?
• Undertake research and evaluation and staff
  training relevant to our own lived experience
• Most important aspect is enabling the voices of
  those least often heard to be listened to!

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Our Philosophy

• Paulo Freire
• Brazilian Educational Psychologist
• Conceptual Framework
• Knowledge is not neutral there are hidden
  agendas contained within it.
• Oppressed peoples often experience life as
  objects they are acted upon, as opposed to
  acting for themselves.
• They can sometimes lack the critical skills
  essential for influencing the institutions that
  have control over their lives.
• He advocated for a process he called
  Conscientization

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Conscientization

• Changes in both the internal and external world
  of the person
• Development of the link between knowledge and
  power through self directed action
• Allows people to question the nature of their
  historical and social situation
• Transforms the object experience of being acted
  upon into a subject experience of acting upon

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Our Philosophy

• Ignacio Martin-Baro
• Jesuit Priest and Liberation Psychologist
• If our aim is to serve the liberation needs of
  the people, we need to ally ourselves with poor
  and oppressed groups in their struggle for
  justice and dignity.
• We need to develop a progressive psychology that
  helps people find the road to their personal and
  collective historical fulfilment In our case more
  than anyone elses, the principal holdsthe
  concern of the social scientist should be not so
  much to explain the world, as to change it.

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What Does That Look Like?

• Power Awareness making and remaking society and
  history by human action
• Critical Analysis of Discourse beyond the
  surface impressions to an in depth analysis
• De-socialisation Challenging the myths, values
  and behaviours adopted as object
• Self Organisation and EducationTransformational
  relationships based on equality and shared power

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Problem Posing

• Experiential Learn by doing
• Participatory At a level that suits the
  individual
• Situated In the lived experience of the
  individual
• Democratic Mutually constructed by the
  individual and the group
• Dialogic raises awareness and facilitates the
  process of conscientization / awareness
• Challenges oppression active subjects not
  passive objects
• Activist seeks answers through the research
  process

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Personal / Professional Programme

• Tees Region Open College Network
• Four modules Research and Development
• Personal / Professional Development
• Counselling Skills
• Free Module Domestic Violence, Gender Issues,
  Human Rights, negotiable choice

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Research Governance

• Criminal Records Bureau Checks
• Honorary Contracts
• Peer Review Group
• Awareness of roles and responsibilities
• Confidentiality
• Health and Safety Mandatory Training
• Occupational Health Checks

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recovery through discovery

• Work we are currently involved in doing or
  developing
• British Institute for Human Rights Service User
  Charter
• Legal Services Commission Sectioning Process
• Employment for people with MH needs Government
  Office North East
• Young People who self harm - HTA, DoH
• Mental Health First Aid - CSIP / NIMHE
• Access to Psychological Therapies - North Tees
  and Hartlepool PCT / NIMHE / CSIP
• Access to Primary Care Services for prisoners -
  PORSCH Network, Public Health Observatory
• Service User and Survivor Trainers Network -
  SUSTN National

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dp Evaluation

• How we are going to evaluate our own project!
• Liberation and Community Psychology
• Participatory Action Research
• Service User led outcome measures
• Concrete measures - housing, care package,
  education, time feeling well
• Broad range of tools - diaries, narrative
  accounts, focus groups, observational
• Professor Raquel Guzzo - Brazil

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recovery through discovery

• A Word about the Recovery Process
• Can occur without professional intervention
• Essential to have people who believe in and
  support you in the process of recovery
• Is not linked to the cause of the problem
• Can take place even if symptoms re-occur
• Alters the pattern and symptoms of the illness
• Does not happen in a straight line
• Consequences of mental ill health more difficult
  to recover from than the original episode
• Does not mean the illness never happened!