The assessment and management of risk is central to contemporary mental health practice. The emergence of recovery has contributed to demands for more service user centred…
Abstract
Purpose
The assessment and management of risk is central to contemporary mental health practice. The emergence of recovery has contributed to demands for more service user centred approaches to risk. The purpose of this paper is to examine the potential of narrative as a framework for understanding risk and safety in mental health care.
Design/methodology/approach
Narrative theory is adopted to structure a debate examining the potential role of a narrative approach to risk assessment and inform future practice.
Findings
There is a danger that even within services, people with mental health problems are understood in terms of their riskiness perpetuating an image of service users as “dangerous others”. This is confounded by a disconnection with individual context in the risk assessment process. Narrative centralizes the persons’ subjective experience and provides a contemporaneous self-account of their identity. This situates risk within a context and creates possibility for greater understanding of coping, strengths and resilience.
Originality/value
There has been a call for new ways of working with risk in mental health which facilitate safety and recovery. There is limited examination of what this might actually look like. This paper presents narrative as an approach that may achieve these aims.
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Anne Felton and Marissa Lambert
Student mental health is a major challenge for higher education in the twenty-first century. Students undertaking healthcare professionally affiliated courses can experience…
Abstract
Purpose
Student mental health is a major challenge for higher education in the twenty-first century. Students undertaking healthcare professionally affiliated courses can experience additional pressures that negatively impact on their well-being and can make it more difficult to access support. The paper aims to discuss this issue.
Design/methodology/approach
To address some of these challenges, the Bridge Network was established in one healthcare school in a higher education institution. It is a peer support network co-produced with students studying on healthcare courses to provide group-based support to promote mental well-being. Student peer group facilitators draw on their own lived experience of mental health challenges or of being a carer. The groups provide a safe space for students who may experience mental health difficulties to share, gain support and connect with each other. This paper explores the journey of setting up the Bridge Network.
Findings
Although the group has been well received and various factors have supported its establishment, there are several difficulties that the network has faced. Power imbalances between students and academic staff have been challenging for the co-produced design, alongside enabling positive and safe discloser for healthcare students. However, the network has raised the profile of mental well-being for healthcare students and encouraged supportive conversations about the issue as well as providing enriching volunteer opportunities.
Practical implications
The Bridge Network is an innovative development reflecting best practice within mental healthcare. However, to ensure spread and sustainability, alignment with organisational strategy is required.
Originality/value
The paper explores the strengths and challenges of establishing peer support for students undertaking vocational healthcare courses.
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Nada Alattar, Anne Felton and Theodore Stickley
Stigma associated with mental health problems is widespread in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA). Consequently, this may prevent many Saudi people from accessing the mental…
Abstract
Purpose
Stigma associated with mental health problems is widespread in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA). Consequently, this may prevent many Saudi people from accessing the mental health-care services and support they need. The purpose of this study is to consider how stigma affects people needing to access mental health services in the KSA. To achieve this aim, this study reviews the knowledge base concerning stigma and mental health in KSA and considers specific further research necessary to increase the knowledge and understanding in this important area.
Design/methodology/approach
This review examines the relevant literature concerning mental health stigma and related issues in KSA using the Arksey and O'Malley and the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses frameworks. As a scoping review, it has used a systematic approach in literature searching. The results of the search were then thematically analysed and the themes were then discussed in light of the concepts of stigma and mental health.
Findings
Stigma around mental health impedes access to care, the nature of care and current clinical practice in the KSA. The voices of those with mental health issues in KSA are almost entirely unrepresented in the literature.
Originality/value
The review identifies that mental health stigma and cultural beliefs about mental health in KSA may act as barriers to accessing services. The voice of mental health service users in KSA remains largely unheard. If public discussion of mental health issues can increase, people’s experiences of accessing services may be improved.
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Anne Felton, Penny Arnold, Sarah Fairbank and Torsten Shaw
Tackling the social exclusion of people with mental health problems is a primary concern for contemporary mental health services. A social inclusion network was developed to…
Abstract
Tackling the social exclusion of people with mental health problems is a primary concern for contemporary mental health services. A social inclusion network was developed to co‐ordinate a small participatory project arising as part of a practice development initiative. It aimed to examine the experiences of involvement in the community from the perspectives of those using and working in rehabilitation adult mental health services.To gather information three different approaches were used. Networks between rehabilitation services and community resources were identified using a mapping tool whilst focus groups were used to gain more in‐depth perceptions from rehabilitation staff. Finally, a participatory photo project was conducted which involved working with people who use services to capture images of their involvement in their local community. This article reports on the outcomes of the focus groups and photography project.Findings suggested that services reported some success at developing partnerships within the community, but discrimination still remained a significant obstacle. For those people living in the units, social inclusion was an acutely subjective experience in which people continued to experience acceptance and inclusion within mental health services and had made active choices in defining this as their community.
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Theodore Stickley, Brenda Rush, Rebecca Shaw, Angela Smith, Ronald Collier, Joan Cook, Torsten Shaw, David Gow, Anne Felton and Sharon Roberts
Service user involvement is called for at every level of NHS delivery in the United Kingdom (UK). This article describes a model of service user participation in the development…
Abstract
Service user involvement is called for at every level of NHS delivery in the United Kingdom (UK). This article describes a model of service user participation in the development of mental health nurse curricula in a UK university. Using a research model of participatory action research, the Participation In Nurse Education (PINE) project has now become mainstream in the mental health branches at the university. Service users led the design and implementation of the teaching sessions and led the data collection and analysis. Research participants were the service user trainers and the student nurses who were involved in being taught in the early stages of the project. The benefits of the work to both trainers and students are identified as well as some of the difficulties.
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Julie McGarry, Charley Baker, Claire Wilson, Anne Felton and Anirban Banerjee
It is now widely acknowledged that health care professionals on the front line of care delivery will often be among the first to whom patients or clients who have experienced…
Abstract
Purpose
It is now widely acknowledged that health care professionals on the front line of care delivery will often be among the first to whom patients or clients who have experienced abuse will present or disclose abuse in a clinical context. It is therefore of pivotal importance that all health care professionals, including nurses, are adequately prepared at the earliest opportunity to effectively respond to a disclosure of abuse or identify where abuse may be suspected. The paper aims to discuss these issues.
Design/methodology/approach
In order to address this contemporary challenge within health care the authors present a model, developed in the UK, for the embedding of safeguarding knowledge, skills and attitudes within undergraduate pre-registration nursing curricula. This model is integrative and focuses on the acquisition of knowledge and skills in the field of safeguarding vulnerable adults and children.
Findings
Student evaluation to date has been extremely positive with the majority of student responses indicating that individuals felt that they had received the requisite level of educational support and knowledge to enable them to recognise concerns. However, it was also clear that students felt that the knowledge gained within the classroom setting needed to be effectively supported and translated in the practice setting.
Practical implications
Safeguarding clearly forms a central part of professional accountability and responsibility. It is therefore pivotal that professionals receive the requisite education, skills and knowledge at the earliest opportunity.
Originality/value
To the authors’ knowledge this initiative is novel in approach and as such has the potential to inform similar education programmes.
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Leadership educators teach Transformational Leadership Theory in their classrooms, but could transformational theory be used as a pedagogical model to deepen students’…
Abstract
Leadership educators teach Transformational Leadership Theory in their classrooms, but could transformational theory be used as a pedagogical model to deepen students’ understanding of leadership? This article presents Erin Gruwell, a first-year teacher at Woodrow Wilson High School in Long Beach and subject of the 2006 movie The Freedom Writers, as a case study where an educator practiced the components of transformational leadership in the classroom to transform students’ lives. Gruwell used idealized influence, inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation, and individual consideration to transform a classroom of gang members into a community of scholars and authors. Following the case examples, leadership educators are provided examples of how to incorporate the four components of transformational leadership in their instructional methods. The purpose is to not only demonstrate the theory in action, but to deepen students’ learning of leadership theory.
John H. Bickford III and Taylor A. Badal
Contemporary education initiatives require English language arts educators spend half their time on non-fiction and history and social studies teachers to include diverse sources…
Abstract
Contemporary education initiatives require English language arts educators spend half their time on non-fiction and history and social studies teachers to include diverse sources. Beginning in the early grades within the aforementioned curricula, students are to scrutinize multiple texts of the same historical event, era, or figure. Whereas trade books are a logical curricular resource for English language arts and history and social studies curricula, the education mandates do not provide suggestions. Research indicates trade books are rife with historical misrepresentations, yet few empirical studies have been completed so more research is needed. Our research examined the historical representation of Eleanor Roosevelt within trade books for early and middle-grades students. Identified historical misrepresentations included minimized or omitted accounts of the societal contexts and social relationships that shaped Mrs. Roosevelt’s social conscience and civic involvement. Effective content spiraling, in which complexity and nuance increase with grade level, between early and middle-grades trade books did not appear. Pedagogical suggestions included ways to position students to identify the varying degrees of historical representation within different trade books and integrate supplementary primary sources to balance the historical gaps.