Mental Health Partnership Research Articles

Fair Access to Care Services (FACS): implementation in the mental health context of the UK

Since April 2003, all adults requiring social care services must have an assessment to determine their eligibility, which is set within the four-level framework of Fair Access to Care Services [FACS; LAC (2002)13]. This paper examines the implementation of FACS by community mental health teams in eight sites in mental health partnership trusts, and one in a mental health and social care trust in the UK. Twenty-eight respondents (managers within trusts and social services departments) participated in in-depth qualitative interviews, which were undertaken between August 2004 and February 2005. The interviews covered: consultation with users and partner organisations; training and briefings for staff; FACS thresholds; integration of FACS and the Care Programme Approach; and the impact of implementing FACS on budgetary arrangements between health and social care. Using the framework analysis approach to analyse data, it was found that FACS implementation in mental health services has been somewhat haphazard, and has identified real differences between health and social care approaches to eligibility determination, assessment and priorities. In particular, the type and amount of consultation, training and induction into FACS was variable, and in some cases, unacceptably poor. While FACS may have reduced variability between authorities, the exercise of professional judgement in the operation of FACS and the lack of high-quality preventative services remain as potential sources of inequity within the system. The authors conclude that FACS has revealed and reinforced a growing separation rather than an integration of mental health and social care ideas and practices, at least in the participating sites.

Making demands

Carole Dinshaw Consultant nurse: mental health in older adults, worcestershire mental health partnership NHS trust

Research–Practice Partnership in Mental Health: Lessons from Participants

Despite pervasive calls for increased collaboration between researchers and practitioners, there has been limited research on research-practice partnership in mental health. This qualitative study describes one research-practice partnership that supports a study of community-based psychotherapy for children and families. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with all 12 participants (six Researchers and six Practitioners) to elicit perceptions of the collaborative process, including (a) attitudes and experiences entering into the collaboration, (b) perceived challenges and benefits, and (c) suggestions for improvements in future efforts. The findings reinforce the central role of communication and trust-building in developing effective collaborations and exchanging knowledge.

Research–practice Partnership in Mental Health: Lessons from Participants

Research–practice Partnership in Mental Health: Lessons from Participants

Mental Health Workforce Collaboration and Partnership: Towards a response to World Health Assembly Resolution WHA 57.19

Using Australia as the main example, the aim of this paper is to consider selective aspects of the forthcoming World Health Report 2006 as it sets an agenda to create a responsive and dynamic health workforce. At the core of a culturally competent mental health workforce will be clinicians prepared to question and respond to particular health experiences and what they, managers and policy makers of all persuasions see as different perceived causes of concern, optimal care and culturally appropriate support and treatment. The enlargement of focus contained in this paper is intended to stimulate more informed and compassionate awareness and respect for alternative points of view held between health and human service workers and communities from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds.

Mental Health and Criminal Justice partnerships: A case study from the substance misuse field

Mental Health and Criminal Justice partnerships: A case study from the substance misuse field

Partnership in Mental Health and Child Welfare

Mental illness is an issue for a number of families reported to child protection agencies. Parents with mental health problems are more vulnerable, as are their children, to having parenting and child welfare concerns. A recent study undertaken in the Melbourne Children's Court (Victoria, Australia) found that the children of parents with mental health problems comprised just under thirty percent of all new child protection applications brought to the Court and referred to alternative dispute resolution, during the first half of 1998. This paper reports on the study findings, which are drawn from a descriptive survey of 228 Pre-Hearing Conferences. A data collection schedule was completed for each case, gathering information about the child welfare concerns, the parents' problems, including mental health problems, and the contribution by mental health professionals to resolving child welfare concerns. The study found that the lack of involvement by mental health social workers in the child protection system meant the Children's Court was given little appreciation of either a child's emotional or a parent's mental health functioning. The lack of effective cooperation between the adult mental health and child protection services also meant decisions made about these children were made without full information about the needs and the likely outcomes for these children and their parents. This lack of interagency cooperation between mental health social work and child welfare also emerged in the findings of the Icarus project, a cross-national project, led by Brunel University, in England. This project compared the views and responses of mental health and child welfare social workers to the dependent children of mentally ill parents, when there were child protection concerns. It is proposed that adult mental health social workers involve themselves in the assessment of, and interventions in, child welfare cases when appropriate, and share essential information about their adult, parent clients. Children at risk of abuse and neglect are the responsibility of all members of the community, and relevant professional groups must accept this responsibility.

Parent-School and Community Partnerships in Children's Mental Health: Networking Challenges, Dilemmas, and Solutions

Inter-agency collaboration, service coordination, and the creation of successful partnerships among parents, teachers, and human services professionals continues to be a challenge for the development of responsive community-based systems of care for at-risk youth and their families. We explore how one inner-city neighborhood struggles to create successful community partnerships through traditional networking strategies. Our findings identify networking strategies that appear to work and those that do not. Recommendations for improving communication are provided.

Supported Education Enhancing Rehabilitation (SEER): A Community Mental Health and Community College Partnership for Access and Retention

Individuals who are recovering from psychiatric disabilities often need specialized programs in order to prepare for, gain access to, and sustain participation in college education and the vocational opportunities that will hopefully follow a degree. A unique supported education program located on a community college campus in Spokane, Washington, known as SEER (Supported Education Enhancing Rehabilitation) is a vocational and educational partnership that delivers its services in the form of one-to-one, on-site support, thereby ensuring that educational recovery is not a process consumers will have to endure on their own. This article outlines the unique program components of SEER while recognizing the need for more research attention on the factors that promote educational and vocational success, so that they might be replicated across the country.

Partnerships in mental health: addressing barriers to social inclusion

Current trends in mental health services emphasize working in partnership with consumers and other government and non-government community organizations for improvement in quality of life for service users. People with a mental illness experience social exclusion, thereby limiting their ability to participate fully in community life. Occupational therapists have a substantial role to play in helping service users to overcome barriers to their community inclusion. Partnerships need to be formed to increase access to community resources and participation in activities that are enjoyed by other members of the community. Such partnerships have a health promotion emphasis and foster the relationship between mental-health services and the wider community, thus shifting the focus from direct occupational therapy service delivery to community-based rehabilitation interventions. This article describes the development, implementation and evaluation of an Australian healthy lifestyle course devised to meet the identified rehabilitation goals of people with mental illness to lose weight, get fit, commence vocational study and get a job. The course was run in partnership between mental health consumers, occupational therapists from the St George Mental Health Rehabilitation Service and staff and students from the Sutherland College of Technical and Further Education.

The ‘Catch-22’ of recruitment and retention in psychiatry

As the Medical Director and Deputy Medical Director of the Avon and Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership Trust, we are responsible for the recruitment and development of a large number of medical staff. We are also extensively involved in trying to develop new services in line with the two National Service Frameworks (NSFs), and other central and local directives. Discussion with colleagues elsewhere suggests that we are not alone in experiencing a number of problems, including being hampered by the financial position of our commissioners and the lack of structural protection for mental health funding. However, the task is also made more difficult by the conflicting local and central imperatives from the Royal College of Psychiatrists and the Department of Health. The current problems facing our Trust are outlined as an illustration of the more generally experienced difficulties. Some possible solutions are proposed.

The ‘Catch-22’ of recruitment and retention in psychiatry

As the Medical Director and Deputy Medical Director of the Avon and Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership Trust, we are responsible for the recruitment and development of a large number of medical staff. We are also extensively involved in trying to develop new services in line with the two National Service Frameworks (NSFs), and other central and local directives. Discussion with colleagues elsewhere suggests that we are not alone in experiencing a number of problems, including being hampered by the financial position of our commissioners and the lack of structural protection for mental health funding. However, the task is also made more difficult by the conflicting local and central imperatives from the Royal College of Psychiatrists and the Department of Health. The current problems facing our Trust are outlined as an illustration of the more generally experienced difficulties. Some possible solutions are proposed.

Increased mental health needs and new roles in school communities.

Mental health issues and partnership roles in school communities. To heighten the awareness of healthcare providers about the multiple mental health conditions students bring into school communities and the impact of these conditions on students' ability to learn; to encourage partnering between healthcare providers and educators to support students in achieving academic and developmental success. Literature review and authors' experiences with assessment of and intervention with school-age children presenting with impaired mental health. Health and education systems must increase their partnerships on behalf of children for a healthy future.

Mental health service users' views of nurse prescribing

This study explored the views of mental health service users regarding the concept of nurse prescribing, an area that to date has not been examined in any significant way. A qualitative approach was used to gather data from a series of focus groups made up of service users within the Avon and Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust area. Content analysis was used to analyse data from each focus group and four major themes were identified from the relevant component categories. This study identifies that service users have a number of concerns regarding the adoption of nurse prescribing within the mental health context, in particular the need for nurses taking on a prescribing role to be adequately educated and supported in this function. Participants were concerned that in developing a prescribing role, nurses did not neglect other core nursing activities and that the issues of role profile, skill mix and collaborative working were not undermined. The study provides useful information regarding the development of this role within mental health nursing, and offers constructs that could be explored further among service user and patient groups using quantitative methodologies.

Attitudes of psychiatrists to evidence-based guidelines

Aims and MethodWe aimed to survey clinicians' attitudes on using evidence-based guidelines. A postal questionnaire based on a previous survey of general practitioners was sent to 105 psychiatrists working within Avon and Western Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust.ResultsThere was a 91% response rate. Respondents were generally in favour of clinical guidelines, with scores indicating a positive attitude to guidelines in 13 of the 18 statements. The majority felt that guidelines were effective in improving patient care, could be used flexibly to suit individual patients and did not impinge on their clinical judgement.Clinical ImplicationsPsychiatrists welcomed the increasing use of guidelines. Further research is needed to determine whether this will translate into actual use and improved outcomes for patients.

Mental health service users and disability: implications for future strategies

English Mental health service users/survivors are subject to both mental health and disability policies, yet there appears to be an ambiguity in the approach of disability policy and disability politics to them. Mental health policy, which has always had powers to restrict their rights, is now increasingly associating mental health service users/survivors with ‘dangerousness’ and focusing on them as a threat to ‘public safety’. Mental health service users’/survivors’ organisations, which have so far tended to focus their activities on mental health policy and partnership approaches to making change, are now beginning to look to disability policy and politics to develop their thinking and activities for the future, while retaining their own distinct and independent identity. This has important implications for disability studies, policy and politics, and highlights the importance of addressing issues relating to mental health service users/survivors fully and equally.

Clinical psychology in rural general practice: A pilot of a collaborative model of mental health service delivery*

*A project funded by the Partnerships in Service Reform Section, Mental Health and Special Programs Branch of the Commonwealth Department of Health and Age Care.

Women and schizophrenia. Edited by D. J. Castle, J. McGrath and J. Kulkarni, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2000. Pages: 151. £18.95

International Journal of Geriatric PsychiatryVolume 17, Issue 1 p. 91-92 Book Review Women and schizophrenia. Edited by D. J. Castle, J. McGrath and J. Kulkarni, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2000. Pages: 151. £18.95 Susan M. Benbow, Corresponding Author Susan M. Benbow Manchester Mental Health Partnership Manchester, UKCarrisbrooke Resource Centre, Wenlock Way, Gorton, Manchester MI2 5LF.Search for more papers by this author Susan M. Benbow, Corresponding Author Susan M. Benbow Manchester Mental Health Partnership Manchester, UKCarrisbrooke Resource Centre, Wenlock Way, Gorton, Manchester MI2 5LF.Search for more papers by this author First published: 14 January 2002 https://doi.org/10.1002/gps.513AboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat No abstract is available for this article. Volume17, Issue1January 2002Pages 91-92 RelatedInformation

Maintaining a Family Work for Psychosis service by recognising and addressing the barriers to implementation

This paper examines a number of barriers which in the past had led to the lack of introduction of Family Work for Psychosis service provision within local mental health services across Bath, North East Somerset and Western Wiltshire (all now within the Avon & Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust service). Barriers (and local solutions to them) are examined, relating to insufficient management and professional support, training and support needs, supervision, appropriate referral, coworking and case management, flexibility of delivery, and crisis versus strategic ways of working. Key elements, which have led to the successful implementation of family work for psychosis within local service provision are outlined. The utility of having a 'Service Champion' is emphasised. The service is currently an NHS Beacon Site, in recognition of its effective implementation of family work for psychosis within routine clinical practice.

Meeting the needs of consumers in the community: a working partnership in mental health in New Zealand.

The aim was to evaluate whether the services community mental health nurses provide are meeting the needs of consumers in the community. The role of the mental health nurse in the community is changing as a result of deinstitutionalization, the consumer movement and the market model of health care delivery. In this context it is important for mental health nurses to evaluate whether the service they are currently providing is meeting the needs of consumers. This was a joint project between nurses and consumers. It was a service-specific descriptive research project utilizing qualitative methods of data collection and analysis that provides a model for working in partnership. The results of this research identify collaboration in planning care and sharing information as two areas of concern but generally the consumers were very satisfied with the care provided by community mental health nurses. The analysis of the data suggests that consumers value nursing care because nurses provide support in their own home; they help consumers develop strategies for coping with their illness and their life; they provide practical assistance when it is required; they are vigilant about any deterioration or improvement; and they are available and accessible. The results of this study have demonstrated that nurses will remain critical to the success of community-based care because of their ability and willingness to be flexible to the demands of their own organization and the users of services.