Peer Support - Evidence and Practice in Mental Health Recovery Webinar
What people with lived experience think is important to their recovery journeys is often very different to what their health care professional thinks is important.
The webinar looks at Alex Berry & Karin Machin's PhD research:
- Alex's PhD looked at what people with anxiety and depression believed was important to their recovery journeys. In terms of practice points, the main finding from the research was that often what people with lived experience think is important is often very different to what their health care professional thinks is important Therefore finding out what is important to people, seeing their lives holistically and helping them to uncover what recovery means to them is key to building a good therapeutic relationships and positive outcomes. A main point of interest will be in the research methods Alex used (Q-methodology and journey mapping). These are less well known techniques so Alex will use her research to illustrate the power and potential of these techniques.
- Karin's PhD research considers how peer supporters use technology, a research question which arose from her work and lived experience, and which has become timely through the Covid pandemic. Her presentation will share her methodology and initial findings from interviews with peer supporters.
About the speakers
Alex Berry worked for 15 years for Northamptonshire Healthcare Foundation Trust as a psychological wellbeing practitioner working with people with common mental health problems. She was seconded to the charity PriMHE (Primary Mental Health England) to lead their patient and public involvement work and after this secondment returned to NHFT as a service development manager for their Improving Access to Psychological Therapy service. Alex was awarded a PhD in Primary Care Mental Health in 2018. She has work for the last 2 years at Diabetes UK as lead for the National Diabetes Audit which is a large clinical audit measuring standards of diabetes care across primary and secondary care services in England and Wales.
Karen Machin delivers training and consultancy around peer-based approaches through her organisation, With-you. She has supported implementations in both the voluntary and statutory sectors, including a range of mental health settings such as perinatal care, psychiatric liaison teams, and secure care.