Community mental health and social exclusion: Working appreciatively towards inclusion

Abstract

A central feature of community mental health practice is the social inclusion of its service users. This involves opening up life opportunities in the mainstream community, requiring collaboration with community partners. A group of mental health service managers, practitioners, service users and representatives from the Further Education community worked together for 18 months to promote social inclusion for local service users and used appreciative inquiry and co-operative inquiry methods to explore and enhance this work. This article discusses the methodological nuances of this fusion of approaches. It underlines the benefits of an appreciative approach for addressing historically rooted patterns of practice within statutory mental health services, and highlights how harnessing an extended epistemology can bring together impetus from 'top down' and 'bottom up' to create actionable plans. The article describes what was learned about optimal inter-agency working and about trying to be a change agent in a large organization. It concludes with reflections on the suitability of participatory action research methods for developing community-orientated mental health services.

Community Participation and Recovery for Mental Health Service Users: An Action Research Inquiry

“…This paper focuses on the service user interviews. Fieldhouse and Onyett (2012) reflect on using AR methods with the consortium and Fieldhouse (2012) explores the practice implications of the consortium's joint working.…”

“It is like stepping into another world”: Exploring the possibilities of using appreciative participatory action research to guide culture change work in community and long-term care

“…Duncan & RidleyDuff, 2014;Fieldhouse & Onyett, 2012). In particular, appreciative inquiry (AI), as one of many practices of PAR, offers a framework for change inspired by an organization's best practices.…”

From the rhetoric to the real: A critical review of how the concepts of recovery and social inclusion may inform mental health nurse advanced level curricula — The eMenthe project

“…These would include: how to work collaboratively, power-sharing, promoting shared decision-making and selfmanagement (Gandi and Wai, 2010;Hill et al, 2010;Mayes, 2011;Fieldhouse and Onyett, 2012;McEvoy et al, 2012;Tew et al, 2012;Todd et al, 2012;Ammeraal et al, 2013;Iancu et al, 2013;Van der Stel, 2013); and positive risk-taking (Stickley and Felton, 2006;Kelly et al, 2009;Robertson and Collinson, 2011;Bird et al, 2014;Heller, 2014;Tickle et al, 2014). In order to promote socially inclusive outcomes, various skills can been identified from the literature: e.g.…”