Experts by experience help 'raise the bar’ on mental health training
Mental health service users in Greater Manchester are at the heart of a ground-breaking programme to help develop the mental health practitioners of the future.
The 15-strong cohort of ‘experts by experience’, who work with Greater Manchester Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust (GMMH), have helped ‘raise the bar’ on training of new recruits to high standards.
Their work, at GMMH’s Psychological Therapies Training Centre, has focused on transforming the approach to training, ensuring that their feedback and input helps inform and shape how trainee Cognitive Behaviour Therapists (CBT) learn their profession.
While lectures and theory continue to be a key part of training, service users’ ideas and suggestions have been real drivers, adding value to this transformative approach.
Video filming was first used to help train ‘experts by experience’ from May 2023 to identify the learning in their own experiences and the idea of using edited footage was first used at the Induction Event in September last year. They are now used at every available and suitable opportunity.
Anthony O'Connor, Participation Lead (Adult Programmes) with the service, said:
“As well as gathering service users’ stories and putting these stories in the room with our trainee therapists, we have been co-designing and co-producing a range of videos with our experts by experience to maximise engagement and thus, the learning process.
“We have produced several new formats where they take part and constantly assess the impact of these while we are always looking to refine and improve our techniques.
“From our ongoing interaction with the wider therapist training community, we know that what we do here is seen as raising the bar and setting very high standards when it comes to service user engagement. The training centre already has a national reputation for excellence, and we believe that this addition to our programmes puts us at the forefront of training delivery.
“We also have nearly two years of continuous and ongoing feedback from our trainees telling us that having people with lived experience so involved in the programme makes a significant and positive difference to the quality of their education.”
There are currently 37 CBT trainees taking part in a one-year course run at the centre, a leader in its field, and one of only three in the North-West that provides this type of training, and the focus is on ensuring that they have the opportunity to learn from the experts by experience – the end users – in building up their knowledge, understanding and experience.
CBT is used to support service users with a variety of mental health issues including personality disorders, social anxiety, depression, Complex Emotional and Relational Needs (CERN – formerly known as bipolar disorder), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) and psychosis.
An expert by experience, in the context of the training centre, is someone who has had a course of CBT and is able and willing to share their learning from that experience. It may also be someone who has been the primary carer for an individual who has been through CBT.
Leanne, while training to become a fully qualified CBT therapist in Talking Therapies, said:
“Having the experts by experience involved throughout our learning journey, from interviews to teaching, has been so beneficial. Hearing about the experiences that have been shared has helped me to think about how clients are experiencing therapy, what their previous experiences might have been, the impact that they might have had and what I can do to support them moving forward.
“They all do a wonderful job, standing up in front of a group of people and being vulnerable about your own experiences cannot be easy but it is so appreciated.”
One expert by experience, Tameka who is in her 20s and is from North Manchester, said:
“I've thoroughly enjoyed working alongside the CBT trainees this past year. The mutually beneficial relationship has taught us all a lot.
“The students were always eager to learn from us, asking questions to further their learning and they gave amazing feedback afterwards about how insightful the sessions were.
“My confidence and skills in public speaking have definitely improved in this past year too, I'm really grateful to have the opportunities at the training centre that will benefit me for years to come.
“I especially enjoyed the measures sessions, where we got to work both in person and through a video call which gave different dimensions to the work and opened up new conversations as we became more comfortable with each other and understanding our boundaries.”
Another expert by experience said: “I feel valued and heard, and it's great to know that my experience of therapy is contributing to a broader impact on the ongoing development of mental health services. It is also a therapeutic process to offer personal experience as it reinforces just how far I have journeyed in my mental health and wellbeing.”
