Mental Health, Service User Involvement and Recovery

Julie Gosling is Director of Advocacy in Action, a service user consultancy, and Visiting Lecturer, University of Nottingham, UK. She has over 20 years' experience at the forefront of service user involvement and in creating partnerships.

Jenny Weinstein has conscientiously assembled individual and collective consumer ideas about personal recovery and how to deploy them for culture change in mental health delivery systems. It is enlightening and instructive. Chapter authors describe universals of social stigma, as well as more specific problems with practitioner behaviour. A sense of transcendence is eloquently described, and sometimes movingly so, as the authors relate their odysseys. First-person accounts transfigure info illustrations of how fostering systems change can also advance personal recovery. Repeatedly, the role of educator of professionals emerges in this regard. For instance, there is an excellent chapter that describes student workshops based on common "Practice Dilemmas." They are facilitated by a team of consumers and address a pedagogical need to be challenging yet supportive and nonjudgmental in professional re-education... Regardless, this fast-reading book is valuable to understand how personal experiences affect recovery and advocacy. As grounding to educate a new generation of practitioners, I recommend it to trainees and faculty. For the rest of us, clinicians and administrators alike, it is part of the wake-up call.'Psychiatric Services, A Journal of the American Psychiatric Association`This book is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand some of the benefits, complexities and est ways to facilitate service user involvement. Covering involvement in advocacy, education, planning services, anti-discrimination campaigns, research and caring for ourselves, it gives examples of successful projects where service users have been involved.`

• Introduction. Jenny Weinstein, London South Bank University. 1. Introduction to Mental Health Service User Involvement. Dr Philip Kemp, London South Bank University. 2. The Ethos of Involvement as the Route to Recovery. Julie Gosling, Advocacy in Action. 3. Building a Compelling Future. Humphrey Greaves, mental health service user and consultant. 4 Circle of One: Experiences and Observations of a BME Service User and Consultant. Humphrey Greaves. 5. Becoming an Expert by Experience. Aloyse Raptopoulos, mental health service user and consultant 6. The Road to Recovery. Aloyse Raptopoulos. 7. User Involvement in their Own Treatment and Care. Jenny Weinstein with service user colleagues. 8. User Involvement in Challenging Stigma and Discrimination in Mental Health. Jenny Weinstein with users from the Jewish Care Education Project. 9. User Involvement in Planning and Developing Services. Jenny Weinstein with Southwark MIND Council members. 10. User Involvement in Research. Professor Tony Leiba, North East London Mental Health Trust and London South Bank University. 11. The Creative Involvement of Service Users in the Classroom. Dr Philip Kemp. 12. Meeting the Challenge of Working with Young Care Leavers in Delivering Social Work Training. Tom Wilks, London South Bank University, and Liz Green, Goldsmiths College, University of London. 13. Conclusion: The Way forward for Service User Involvement and Recovery. Jenny Weinstein. The Contributors. Subject Index. Author Index