Involving mental health service users and carers in curriculum development: moving beyond ‘classroom’ involvement

Abstract

Recent policy statements that address the future priorities for nurse education have emphasized that service users and carers should be actively engaged in partnerships with education professionals in all aspects of the curriculum. The development of this agenda is well advanced; however, examples of 'how to do it' are sparse. The development of a strategy to involve users and carers in the design and delivery of the Diploma of Higher Education in Nursing at Napier University provided an opportunity to evaluate the process of developing partnerships in this area of nurse education. This paper presents the findings from a process evaluation from the various standpoints of the key interest groups. The overall project and evaluation is outlined, along with methodological and practical issues surrounding this type of 'collaborative' evaluation. The importance and satisfaction of practical aspects of the project are examined. The issues of representativeness, expertise in 'involvement' and the importance of the 'process' of involvement are explored. Finally, the challenges to developing 'meaningful involvement' that goes beyond 'classroom involvement' in nurse education are identified and discussed.

“User Involvement Is a Sine Qua Non, Almost, in Medical Education”: Learning with Rather than Just About Health and Social Care Service Users

“…education. Briefly, this work demonstrates benefits for services users and students such as increased self-confidence and challenging assumptions about mental health respectively (Felton and Stickley, 2004;Masters et al, 2002). Costs for service users such as anxiety have also been revealed (Felton and Stickley, 2004).…”

“…• Developing and maintaining humanism (Byrne et al, 2003) • Acceptability and accessibility of support mechanisms for students varies (Cottrell et al, 1994) • Developing clinical and communication skills (Spencer et al, 2000) • Developing ways of knowing (Knight and Mattick, in press) • Developing 'partnership' relationships with patients (Frisby, 2001) Service users • Feelings of empowerment (Frisby, 2001;Felton and Stickley, 2004;Hatem et al, 2003;Masters et al, 2002) • Involvement can have a detrimental impact on service users' psychological well being (Felton and Stickley, 2004) • Sense of giving something back to the services (Chipp et al, 2004) • Service users should be paid appropriately for their time (Frisby, 2001;Le Var, 2002;Masters et al, 2002) • Opportunity to influence medical education and 'shape' future doctors (McAndrew and Samociuk, 2003) • Service users need training (Le Var, 2002;Masters et al, 2002;Simpson, 1999) • Therapeutic to talk to students (Howe and Anderson, 2003;Stacy and Spencer, 1999) • Service users are concerned about student professionalism (Howe and Anderson, 2003;Le Var, 2002)…”

Involving carers and service users in the training of psychiatrists

“…It also keeps tutors in touch with current issues relating to mental health service delivery, which is very relevant given the findings of the report by Owen et al (2005) in relation to the clinical activity of lecturers. For the service users and carers who take on these training roles, benefits that have been described include the development of a more balanced doctor-patient relationship, a better appreciation of professional perspectives (Walters et al, 2003) and the enhancement of recovery linked with improved selfesteem because of having a training role that is valued (Masters et al, 2002).…”

User involvement in health and social care education: A concept analysis

“…Findings suggested that this level of involvement was beneficial, and had motivated practitioners to implement positive changes to their practice. A process evaluation, of a strategy for involvement in the design and delivery of mental health nursing, identified involvement to be crucial to the development of mental health nurse education (Masters 2002). Agnew & Duffy (2010) report the findings of an evaluation of two methods of user involvement in palliative care teaching in social work education.…”