Managers have a responsibility to be informed about the peer support worker role and communicate role related information to other team members to ensure that peer support workers are included as part of the health team. Implications for practice therefore center on training for managers and inclusion of the peer support worker role in orientation programs. Further, if these steps are not undertaken, a valuable resource could be lost to a health service to the detriment of persons with a mental illness.

Although psychiatrists are likely to treat the targets of bullying, bullying has yet to attract much attention as a research topic in psychiatry. Although the consequences of bullying can be severe for both targets and workplaces, prevention strategies are hampered by competing interests.

The key feature of CDSM approaches is an active collaboration between healthcare professionals and healthcare consumers. It is a fundamental shift away from traditional active expert/passive patient treatment modes. Each of the five approaches discussed exemplifies the active participation in treatment planning by both consumers and mental health professionals.

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