Peer support

Mike Slade

Institute of Psychiatry

South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust

Email: m.slade@iop.kcl.ac.uk

29 April 2010

What do recovered people identify as important to their recovery?

HopeIdentityMeaningPersonal responsibility

Andresen R et al (2003) The experience of recovery from schizophrenia: towards an

empirically-validated stage model, Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, 37, 586-94.

RECOVERY SUPPORT TASKSaka

The job of mental health professionals

1. Fostering relationships

2. Promoting well-being

3. Offering treatments

4. Improving social inclusion

Fostering relationships with…

…oneself

…valued others

…peers

…professionals

…the world

What is peer support?

A “credible role model”

Davidson L, Rakfeldt J, Strauss J (2010) The roots of the recovery movement in psychiatry, Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell

Multiple levels

Mutual self-help groups

Peer support workers

Peer-led services

What do mutual self-help groups do?

1. Personal stories and community narratives

2. Role models

3. Opportunity role structures

4. Social support, sense of belonging, connection

Randall KW, Salem DA (2005) Mutual-help groups and recovery: the influence of settings on participants’ experience of recovery. In: Ralph RO, Corrigan PW,

eds. “Recovery in Mental Illness: Broadening our Understanding of Wellness”, Washington DC: American Psychological Association, 173–205.

Mutual self-help groupsHearing Voices Network (www.hearing-

voices.org)

Schizophrenics Anonymous(www.sanonymous.org)

• I surrender. I admit I need help; I can’t do it alone

• I choose to be well. I take full responsibility for my choices

• I now come to believe that I have great inner resources and I will try to use these resources to help myself and others

• I forgive myself for all the mistakes I have made. I also forgive everyone who has injured or harmed me

• I make a decision to turn my life over to the care of God, as I understand Him…I ask to be changed in depth

Personal stories

Stories matter. Many stories matter.

Stories have been used to dispossess and malign, but stories can also be used to empower and to humanise.

Stories can break the dignity of a people, but stories can also repair that broken dignity

Chimanda Adichi

Peer Support Worker policy

All mental health services will be expected to recruit and train service users as part of the workforce

Department of Health (2001) The Journey to Recovery –

The Government’s vision for mental health care, London: Department of Health.

Peer support and natural support networks are seen as important in recovery as well as giving good value for money. …

A common theme is shifting the balance of staffing…from medical to nursing, social care, talking therapy and peer support workers

HM Government (2009) New Horizons, London: Department of Health, pp.16-17.

Peer support workers

I have often noticed that when I employed a madman who had just recovered his senses either to sweep or to assist a servant, and then to become himself a servant…that his state improved every month, and that somewhat later he was totally cured.

Jean-Baptiste Pussin, Governor of the Asylym at Bicêtre, 1793

Benefits1. For the Peer Support Worker

2. For other staff

3. For other service users

4. For the system

Scottish Government (2009) Evaluation of the Delivering for Mental Health Peer Support Worker Pilot Scheme, Scottish Government Social Research.

Key We Way www.wellink.org.nz/services/keyweway.htm

RCT evidence: peer-led services

In-patient mental health services (n=393)Consumer-operated unlocked service vs. locked inpatient unitImprovements in symptoms and great improvement in satisfaction

Greenfield TK et al (2008) A Randomized Trial of a Mental Health Consumer-ManagedAlternative to Civil Commitment for Acute Psychiatric Crisis,

American Journal of Community Psychology, 42, 135-144.

Consumer-operated mental health services (n=1,827)Drop-in / peer support / education & advocacy vs TAUImprovements in empowerment, dose-effect

Rogers ES et al (2007) Effects of participation in consumer-operated service programs on bothpersonal and organizationally mediated empowerment: Results of multisite study,

Journal of Rehabilitation Research & Development, 44, 785-800.

Personal Recovery and Mental Illness

Cambridge University Press

100 Ways to support recoveryFree to download from:rethink.org/100wys

20-22 Sep 2010, London

Further information at:researchintorecovery.com

Conference

Practice guide

Book