Truly Listening to Accounts of Mental Health Act Assessments: Reflections on my Practice

Abstract

This article draws upon the experience of the author whilst undertaking a qualitative research study exploring service user experiences of being assessed for detention to a mental health hospital. Doing research as a social work practitioner is a growing area and a common motivation is to improve practice. This article brings a different way of reporting research, which is embedded in the reflective tradition of social work. It explores practitioner research and insider/outsider perspectives. Through reflection, the author examines in depth two participants’ narratives, how this impacted her as a mental health social worker and the changes in her practice. These assessments are complex pieces of social work with involuntary service users in a pressured setting and are a challenging area for practitioners to improve service user experiences.