Blog: Lived experience online - learning for co-production
Louise Christie from the Scottish Recovery Network outlines their experience in bringing their Making Recovery Real activity online in response to the pandemic.
Much of Scottish Recovery Network’s activity is focused on bringing people with lived experience of mental health problems, practitioners and decision-makers together to share, learn, vision and plan. It is a great way of working and our plans for 2020 were focused on this way of working. Then in March Covid-19 and lockdown arrived.
We realised that our preferred way of working was no longer possible and may not be for some time. There was a short initial panic about how we would achieve our plans and meet our commitments – I don’t think we were the only organisation that felt that! However very quickly we agreed that the need for lived experience to inform and influence the mental health and wellbeing agenda at national and local level was as important, or even more important than ever.
We took a step back and reflected on our work and the ethos that underpins it. Through our Making Recovery Real initiative we developed an approach which brings people together in an environment where existing power imbalances are addressed and lived experience drives the discussion and planning. This approach has been successful in greatly improving engagement of lived experience and bringing about change in a number of areas.
We drew on this experience and our learning to design and deliver a programme of 12 online conversation cafes which would bring people with lived experience of mental health problems, practitioners and others together to talk about mental health, wellbeing and recovery during Covid-19. We thought carefully about all aspects of the online conversation cafes - planning, communication and delivery. We wanted to ensure that lived experience was at the centre of the online conversation cafes and that they provided a high quality, participative and enjoyable environment. This included:
Limiting the numbers at each online conversation café to eight so that it felt more like sitting round a table and less formal than an event
Developed and shared a Welcome Pack which outlined what to expect, guidelines for good conversations, information about the platform we were using (zoom) and how what we were doing to make the online conversation café a safe space
Started with where people were – their experiences of staying well and recovery in lockdown. From this the conversations developed with people sharing their learning and insights and their hopes for the future.
The online conversation cafes were a great success and places filled up quickly. In fact, we started with six and quickly increased it to 12 to meet demand. What is interesting is that it wasn’t only people we already knew through our work who participated but a considerable number had not been at Scottish Recovery Network events before.
After 12 great conversations we pulled together two reports and other resources sharing lived experience. The first report ‘Staying Connected’ came with a podcast and animation and shared what people were doing to stay well and what they had learned about wellbeing and recovery in lockdown. The second report and accompanying animation ‘Build Back Better’ focused on how a recovery mindset and lived experience can help us plan for a future of better mental health and wellbeing.
It is very easy at challenging times like this to focus on the experts and forget about experts by experience. These conversation cafes and the resulting reports mean that we have recent lived experience evidence to feed into discussions about mental health needs and planning with Scottish Government and others. We have continued to develop this approach with a further programme of online discussion events gathering views on the future for mental health recovery and peer support in Scotland.
By continuing our work online, we have stayed connected with our networks and ensured that people with experience of mental health problems and front line practitioners can influence the agenda around mental health and input to planning for the future. There is no doubting that the pandemic and the experiences of lockdown and continuing restrictions is resulting in more people experiencing distress and mental health problems.
However, our online conversation cafes have given provided a place for lived experience to share their concerns and inform the agenda. It is clear from the conversations that people believe that we should not react by trying to fit lots more people into a mental health system that could not cope with demand before Covid-19 and may not be helpful or appropriate for all. The voice of lived experience is telling us that this time is an opportunity to develop a different approach and for existing peer support and community based approaches to mental health and wellbeing to have a much higher profile and be more highly valued.
We realise that things will change again but this experience means that they way we work has changed. We are very much looking forward to being ‘back in the room’ with people and working together face-to-face. However, we also recognise that by blending this with online approaches can support more people and a wider range of people to inform the agenda and participate in change.
Louise Christie, Acting Director
Scottish Recovery Network, November 2020
Join Sam from SCN as he spoke to Louise Christie from the Scottish Recovery Network to discuss Making Recovery Real.