Understanding Psychosis

This Workshop explores the experience of psychosis through practical exercises, and enables participants to think about ways to support service users in identifying coping strategies, and finding meaning in their experience and exploring recovery journeys

Recovery

A more detailed look at the concept of recovery including practical exercises and theoretical perspectives. This workshop is aimed at mental health professionals and works on a number of levels including supporting individuals and groups of service users in identifying and supporting recovery journeys; and also planning and designing services which support recovery.

Employment and Social Inclusion

Enabling workers to explore methods of working which encourage service users to engage in the mainstream of society. This workshop will also enable workers to explore vocational pathways and to look at how mental health service users can be supported in actively contributing to society.

User focussed workshops

Themes would include:- " Living Well with mental Health problems “Getting the best from services" " recovery", "Getting back to work", " Using Your Experiences positively- How to use your experiences in training

Consultation

Learning from Psychosis has devised a model for consulting service users which is highly inclusive and enables users with very different levels of confidence and functioning to contribute to planning and design of services and participate in decision making.

The way we design sessions for mental health workers is different from traditional approaches to training.

We encourage workers to think from a user perspective by trying to get them to imagine what it feels like to be a mental health service user.

EXPERIENTAL EXPERIENCES:

We do this in a variety of ways; we use experiential exercises (e.g. hearing voices exercise, manic depression exercise),

films we have produced and artworks so participants can feel some of these experiences for themselves.

The aim is to try to get workers to empathise and think about how they would like to be treated if they were in particular circumstances. We do not use role-play in our workshops.

A SAFE SPACE:

We ensure the space is safe from the beginning by establishing group agreements and giving participants the opportunity to raise concerns. We also promise not to run over time.

SMALL GROUPS:

Alongside the exercises, trainees work in small groups so each participant's knowledge and understanding is used to its full potential.

We think it is important to make use of the participant's own understanding and to encourage them to share their thoughts and experiences.

We find that by encouraging participants to share their views, we also learn more from each workshop. The small groups also have the opportunity to discuss in the larger group.

SHARING OUR EXPERIENCES:

We account our own stories and give participants the opportunity to ask questions so they can learn from our experiences. Sometimes, this prompts them to think of issues and situations

raised from their own working relationships and often, the group will discuss these further.

We realise that each experience is unique and encourage workers to work out what is best for their clients.

TAILORED PACKAGES:

Using music and an exercise we have devised, we give participants the opportunity to reveal their hopes and concerns around focussed issues without revealing their identity to the group.

This allows the group to talk openly and honestly about issues that are often overlooked.

We also discuss ways that these can be addressed and used positively.

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