Mental Health and Lived Experience

This workshop will help practitioners understand mental distress and is delivered by facilitators with lived experience. IMHN is an organisation that represents a diverse community of past, current and future users of mental health services, as well as those with lived experiences of mental health. The workshop is provided for practitioners from the VCSE and statutory sector as well as carers, for a ‘meeting of minds’ and a chance for those practitioners to understand different mental health conditions and their impact ‘from the horses mouth’. The workshop is born out of a focus group run by and with people with lived experience of mental ill health. These are the messages they want conveyed to you about what genuinely helped them during times of crises. The training will run for three hours in total. There will be two fifteen-minute comfort breaks during the session. Aims The workshop aims to support the development of practitioners’ soft skills in working with people who may be in crisis due to their mental health; by developing empathy, looking at practical steps for better communication and gaining insight into a variety of mental health issues and their impact. Objectives By the end of the session participants will have; · Discussed how better to co-produce services with those who are receiving them, from care plans to assessments and therapeutic working · Gained a deeper understanding of the impact of different mental health diagnoses, e.g. psychosis, emotional intensity, and depression · Gathered some communication tips for interacting with people that have these diagnoses, when they may be in crises with their mental health · Reflected on their own practice in a non-judgemental, safe space, with the freedom to ask questions and explore potential changes in ways of working.