People who use our services and their carers are at the heart of everything we do. By using your experiences, enthusiasm and ideas you can bring a whole new point of view to the planning and delivery of those services.
Being an Involvement Representative for the Trust can also have a positive impact on your wellbeing and recovery and help us in our ambition to achieve the perfect patient experience.
Providing high quality health and social care services by listening to, acting on and learning from feedback, empowering people who use services to take control of their journey by involving them in every aspect of their care and engaging people with lived experience to co-produce services with us.
Written by Danielle Rogers, Senior Peer Support Worker (PSW) for Sussex Reconnect and Outreach Services
Mutuality and reciprocity allows both parties involved to be able to learn from one another, PSW’s gain just as much as they put out, making peer work such a rewarding role for everyone involved.
Non-judgemental and equality driven approaches allows you to build trusting equal relationships, whereby someone feels comfortable to share things they may not have otherwise shared. Supporting people to be seen for who they are. Not their past, not what they have done, not their mistakes but for who they are as a person.
Driven by empathic approaches, without this, our role wouldn’t be possible! Having compassion for others and recognising their strengths, what they can do moving forward, and what we can do to support them in their journey.
Being alongside the person, it can vary and differ day to day depending on who you are working with, their goals for their future and what they want to do moving forward. One day you could be embarking on an art project, the next you could be supporting someone to make sense of their experiences, and the next you could be speaking in tongues and dissecting an unknown language created by someone due to experiencing mental health challenges - decoding it so the PSW can truly advocate for what they wanted and how they felt!
Personally, peer support has changed my life. It has allowed me to assign meaning and purpose to experiences that I once saw as hurdles, instead I am able to realise that my experiences were stepping stones leading me to exactly where I’m supposed to be.
Before PSW, I felt lost, like I had nothing to offer, I felt my experiences would forever hinder me, preventing me from being able to do anything in life which I now know couldn’t have been further from reality. It has allowed me to see the good in everyone – everyone has something to offer, you just have to help them find it. Being consistent with people is key, you sometimes hear the term 'non-engager', this doesn’t exist and if it does, it’s a rarity – you just haven’t yet found the thing that will support them to engage.
Senior peer roles are a vital piece of the peer work 'puzzle', senior roles not only providing further opportunity for those with lived experience – and opportunity to ladder climb. Also assisting with promoting safe practices and positive wellbeing of peer workers. Providing training, aiding further development of lived experience input including co-production development.
They aim to offer a safe environment where people can learn from each other and recognise each other's strengths and vulnerabilities, focus on what makes us well, and recognise that everyone’s wellbeing and recovery is individual to them.
The college works together to create an environment of hope, control and opportunity for all.
They do this through co-production of their courses:
Don’t take their word for it… this what the students say about the experience of attending a co-produced Wellbeing & Recovery College course.
Great to have a Lived Experience and Carer trainer talking about this subject, it shows a unique perspective blending with ideas and methods to understand how I can support myself.
I felt that both the professional trainer and the LX trainer shared the variety of their experience in an interwoven accessible way, it was a refreshing approach to learning more about this subject.
The course has made me more open minded regarding co production and elements when we are interacting with patients, are we simply engaging them to obtain feedback or are we really providing them with a place to equally bring their ideas and opinions.
This course was very reflective of real-life issues in health care and how co production is important in various elements to ensure that we are creating effective and valued services.
The trainers in this course shared a little about their background, what they’ve done and what is useful to them and other people, but there was also space given to discussion amongst the students and this felt really good, as everyone has a different take and hearing others makes me think it might help me.
If you have experience of using our services, or care for someone who does, you can become involved in the Trust’s work, have your voice heard, and take part in projects and activities.
By using your experiences of our services, together with your enthusiasm and ideas for potential improvement, you can bring a whole new point of view to the planning and delivery of those services.
As an involvement representative you will be offered training. You will also be entitled to reimbursement of travel expenses and some activities may attract an involvement fee in line with Trust policy. Please contact us for more information.
If you would like to register for involvement, please use the online form linked immediately below, so that we can contact you when opportunities arise.
