Many years ago, I was asked to speak at a planning day for a service at which I had just started. I was asked to give a ‘consumer assessment’ of the service. I guess they wanted a reasoned point-form description from a consumer perspective which could be folded into the…
The Mental Health and Wellbeing Act Principles from a Consumer Perspective
IPS – One LLEW Model of Practice
We know what people working in a LLEW Role don’t do. We don’t do the clinical stuff – assessments, encouraging ‘compliance’ with a particular treatment, we also don’t function as case aides, going shopping for consumers, or transporting consumers. So, what does LLEW do then? Consumer and Carer workers have…
‘Peer work’ vs ‘Peer Support Work’
. There are sometimes differences in ‘Worldview’ when it comes to interpreting the terms above, especially in the context of the Certificate 4 in Mental Health Peer Work’. In the context of The Cert IV in Peer Work, the term ‘Peer work’ was the one, at the time, and still…
Plain Language FAQ*
What’s in a name? What you call complicated. I call plain language, who can say? Plain Language is NOT ‘plain language’. What is ‘plain language’ may in fact be partly dependant one one’s background. Plain Language with the capitals is a movement to reform written communication strategies dating at least…
Explaining IPS to Clinicans
This is a piece I wrote after my IPS training. I’d talked to clinicial colleagues at my hospiital work and it had been noticed that the a number of the specific skills covered in IPS were the same as some of those covered in basic clinical training – body language,…
A Diary of a PSW
Or ‘Two Big Days’ Day 1 It’s the Day. The Big Day. I start work. I’m going to be a peer support worker. Week 1 It was great, overwhelming, gratifying and challenging. It felt great to have all those professionals accepting me. The ‘NUM’ explained she’d be ‘managing’ me and…
Alternatives to the ‘Mental Illness’ Model
If what we are experiencing isn’t an ‘Illness’ then what is it? Consumer developed or adopted approaches and how they fit together“ Note, this is not a suggestion that a LLEW must adopt the approaches below, just a note that alternatives exist and are accepted widely in parts of our…
‘All of the Above’ Posters
THE PROBLEM When we get a diagnosis we also get a whole new identity. Instead of students, or workers or parents, or teenagers, we are now ‘consumers’, ‘people with mental illness’ Efforts at ‘psychoeducation’ and development of ‘insight’ into what changes are required to maintain recovery – pills, a permanent…
