As we all race towards London 2012, lets forget about Team GB and focus on how service users are faring in Team PD in the mental health Olympics, Kath Lovell, Emergence managing director will tell delegates during her presentation at this year's British & Irish Group for the Study of Personality Disorder (March 21-23, 2012).
Kath will focus on the "critical reflections" of involving service users with a lived experience of personality disorder in research, training and consultation.
This is a dynamic and interactive two hour workshop designed to explore and understand the historical, emerging and prospective issues that arise when service users with difficulties associated with the diagnosis of personality disorder either lead, work in partnership or are involved in initiatives such as research, training or service development.
The emphasis of the workshop will very much be solution focused with the overall objective seeking to provide participants with usable strategies to take back and implement on their work settings.
The themes covered in the workshop will include:
‘Selecting your team’ - How do you integrate service users into your team in a safe, meaningful and authentic way?
'Playing ball with the big boys' - Can service users really measure up to their academic or professional counterparts - do they strengthen or weaken the side and vice versa? This theme explores the notion of experience versus professional training and how we authentically validate the ‘other’ perspective.
'It's not the winning that matters, it's about taking part!' - Who wins when you involve service users and should service users be just content with being involved even if others benefit and not them directly? This theme will explore issues about terms of engagement, payment, and broader concepts of involvement.
'Whose ball is it anyway?' - Whose agenda is served and essentially who determines the direction of initiatives?
'Can I have my ball back - I want to go home!' - Can you anticipate and work through the challenges of working together?
The workshop will be split into a short presentation to set theoretical and practical context followed by a series of ‘Olympic Events’ (short work groups) which will consist of a group activity.
Kath said: "The overall aim is to use the overarching theme of the Olympics as a vehicle to understand complex and challenging concepts that are relevant to mental health practitioners and researchers who have a remit to involve service users in their work.
"We wish to add an element of fun to the workshop so participants will see it as memorable and hopefully will be more likely to implement the ideas and strategies presented and explored when they go back into their workplace."
