Scottish Recovery Network brings together people, services and organisations, across sectors, to create a mental health system that is recovery focused and powered by lived experience.
A key part of our work is making sure people with lived experience are involved in a meaningful way in the design and delivery of mental health support in their communities.
People with lived experience of mental health problems have a wealth of experience, knowledge and skills to offer. Unfortunately, they often find it difficult to have their voices heard as we continue to have a dominant medical narrative with a service and patient feedback loop, rather than a whole person, whole systems approach, that meaningfully engages with people in need.
Engagement doesn’t have to mean formal
Our work across Scotland has highlighted the need for a move away from the restraints of traditional consultation, which can often feel tokenistic, to creating welcoming and informal spaces with a structure that supports people to share ideas.
At Scottish Recovery Network we often talk about ‘designed informality’. It’s a term that was coined as part of the Making Recovery Real initiatives which eight years on are still bringing people together and putting them at the centre of decision making, service design and practice development.
It's an approach that treats people as people and challenges the ‘them and us’ culture that often exists between those accessing help and those delivering support. It recognises the need for structure but flexible structure. The kind that gives space to the power and value of relationship building, open conversations and creative thinking. Structure that creates conditions that allow people to come together as equals and explore the best way forward to create positive change for them and their communities.
A recovery conversation café approach
One approach is a recovery conversation café. Our free Recovery Conversation Café toolkit supports you to plan and facilitate your event. It helps you to create an environment (off or online) that facilitates discussion and works towards identifying key priorities. It helps people to identify what’s important to them. It enables people to voice what they want to happen in their community. At a recovery conversation café, people are active participants not passive responders. They are welcomed as equals with valued knowledge and experience.
“You were there as yourself, not as your role and function…That felt different, it felt that I was able to contribute more freely, I felt better able to connect with people that were there, breaking some of those barriers or myths and misconceptions”
– Participant, Recovery Conversation Café
Whether empowering people to take local action, informing policy and practice or providing spaces for connection and collaboration, our partnership work has shown us that more people having different types of conversations leads to new results and positive changes. Some of the best solutions come from informal conversations!
