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Co-production, Widening Access and mental health service users

Mark Richardson

Open University, Widening Participation Conference

30th April – 01st May, 2014

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Background

• Started working in mental health (MH) in April 2008.

• People with anxiety, depression, low self worth

• Curriculum – framework tight and heavy assessment.

• Pedagogy - too formal, prevented engagement, reinforced barriers

• Significant barriers - still an eagerness to engage.

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Scale of the mental health (MH) problem

a. Layard, 2006 “mental illness UK’s biggest social problem”

b. 1 in 4 adults (1 in 5 children) experience mental illness = costs the economy £128 Billion (Mental Health Foundation, 2010).

c. Between 1 in 5 and 1 in 3 campus students experience a MH problem (Royal College of Psychiatrists, 2011).

d. Policy is responding across the UK - the Measure in Wales.

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Engagement becoming a priority within WA/WP. The Implementation Strategy reads;

Universities to ensure that plans for widening access to higher education include support for learners with mental health / substance misuse problems.

England and Scotland have Recovery Colleges developing FE informed approaches to engagement in MH – not HE though.

If we are to use WA then we will require challenging curriculum

Policy context - The Welsh Measure and the Together for Mental Health Implementation

Strategy

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Challenging curriculum meets challenging barriers at all levels

• Reduced levels of confidence and aspiration

• Supports adaptive preferences (adapts to disadvantage)

• Stigma and the fear of disclosure (how will I be seen)

• Lack of flexibility in L&T (illness is cyclical – not linear)

• Low retention and submission rates reinforcing ‘failure’.

• Clinical services reluctant to promote HE learning5

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Co-Production or student centred is one way of meeting this challenge

The New Economics Foundation defines co-production as;

“delivering public services in an equal and reciprocal relationship between professionals, people using services, their families and their neighbours. Where activities are co-produced in this way, both services and neighbourhoods become far more effective agents of change”

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1. New student informed (fully inclusive) learning approaches with the Archives

2. Flexible research curriculum within a recovery model - co-production at the heart of activity

3. Includes local service providers and 3rd sector organisations aligning to policy developments across the UK.

4. It is this activity which attracted the County Archivist to CCL.

Widening Access, Research and Mentoring (WARM) and the background to the Pen-Y-Fal

Project

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The Pen-Y-Fal Project – challenging our perceptions of learning and students

Now Then

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Group composition

• 7 students wanted to engage (one student withdrew) and were drawn from an existing group but also another service user group

• All members have experiences of a mental health problem (anxiety, depression, social isolation etc).

• One student is a retired academic while the others are part of the WARM Community Group.

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Process

• Meetings took place between April and May with CCL, the newly formed Archives research group and the Archives with discussions focussed on logistics rather than education or outcomes.

• Discussions encouraged all involved to explore what would work best for learning – the decision was to let the learning develop organically.

• The group’s experiences of mental illness are taken as the point for developing research outcomes and for personal learning pathways

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“It was absolutely amazing on that first day when we weren’t doing anything except looking. Picking things up and putting them down”

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Agreed format

• We literally worked to the demands of the project within an empty research framework

• Framed the research between 1865 – 1875.

• Outcomes would be decided as the project grew but tied to the research informed module

we just placed ourselves in there and said ‘Off [we] go’

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Some Early Barriers

“I’m considering something for the future in research - It’s progress from before when I didn’t have any aspirations at all”

• Language in the records difficult (technical and historic)

• Group had no idea of what to expect from an Archives.

• Handwritten records offered interpretation challenges

• Otherwise – this has worked very well indeed

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“I think this is why it works, because we all go off into something we enjoy”

• This is co-production - No one dominant position - process discussed and negotiated – working with individual goals and aspirations.

• We all became co-creators of learning (and meaning) - influences outcomes

• Student identity as an empowering alternative

Learning and Teaching?

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Academic/outcomes

• 3 journal research papers (health, education and Archive)• Two case studies• Glossary of terms will be presented to the Archives at our

conference in September 2014• Case study charting pharmacology• Demographic database locating key statistics• Analysis of intervention activities for patients at the

asylum

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“That is a natural part of the process, because when you are doing education, your confidence level goes up and your aspirations increase as well”.

What is consistent is a sense of hope for the future with renewed ability coming from ;

• Raised confidence• Aspiration• New directions• And recognition of capability levels

Personal Outcomes.

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1. Confident that this approach is new to HE outreach

2. Offers a new progression route into, through and beyond HE for MH service users.

3. Opportunities for understanding co-production, pedagogy and and education.

4. Challenges our understanding of learning in ‘hard-to-reach’ areas recognising new identities for otherwise stigmatized groups

Conclusions

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The End

Many thanks for listening to me talk about something I am passionate about – I hope I

have managed to share this passion and if you wish to contact me or discuss further

mark.richardson1@southwales.ac.uk(01633) 432960

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References

• Mental Health Foundation Economic burden of mental illness cannot be tackled without research investment Accessed from http://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/content/assets/PDF/campaigns/MHF-Business-case-for-MH-research-Nov2010.pdf

• Layard, R (2006) in THE DEPRESSION REPORT A New Deal for Depression and Anxiety Disorders a report by The Centre for Economic Performance’s Mental Health Policy Group

• Royal College of Psychiatrists (2011) Mental health of students in higher education College report CR166 Royal College of Psychiatrists

• Mental Health (Wales) Measure (2010)• Together for Mental Health Delivery Plan (2012-16) for the Welsh Government’s

Mental Health Measure (2010) [Action 15.7]

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