City, University of London, School of Health Sciences, Disability and Social Inclusion seminar
We invite you to our April 22nd seminar
The role of peer workers in mental health services: opportunities and challenges
Thursday, April 22nd 2021
1pm–2.15pm
Online Event, Via Zoom
To book a place please email Doria Pilling: d.s.pilling@city.ac.uk for a link to the seminar. (Please note you need to be signed in to a personal or professional Zoom account if you do not have a City University email)
Speaker: Steve Gillard. Professor of Mental health research, School of Health Sciences, City, University of London
NHS mental health workforce policy brings the peer worker from the periphery to the core of mental health services in the UK, yet peer support has been taking place in the voluntary sector for decades. While this mainstreaming of peer support potentially offers a great many benefits, there are challenges to integrating a form of support based on a sense of personal connection and reciprocal relationship into a highly regulated organisational environment such as the NHS. This seminar will explore those opportunities and challenges, and consider our expectations of peer support in mental health services.
Steve Gillard leads a programme of research into peer support in mental health services, funded mainly by the National Institute for Health Research. The research is coproduced with researchers who use their own experiences of mental distress and using mental health services to shape the way the research is done.
Reference
Gillard, S. (2019) Peer support in mental health services: where is the research taking us, and do we want to go there? Journal of Mental Health, 28, 4, 341-4
Please let us know if you have any special requirements