The Active Advice Pilot Project: Leisure Enhancement and Social Inclusion for People with Severe Mental Health Problems

Abstract

The social and occupational consequences of mental illness have a considerable impact on quality of life. In addition to high levels of unemployment, many users of mental health services experience significant barriers to satisfying leisure participation. The Active Advice project is a systematic client-centred approach to leisure enhancement for adults with severe mental health problems, which involves identifying latent interests, facilitating leisure participation and helping to bring together isolated individuals through a shared interest. This paper reports the findings from the pilot study, which suggest that adults with enduring mental health problems can participate successfully in leisure occupations and achieve greater social inclusion when individualised support is provided to enable the barriers to be overcome. However, it is essential that subsequent programmes devise strategies to maintain participants' initial enthusiasm and motivation since 53% of participants did not carry through their action plan.