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Research and Evaluation Methods in Social Work Module (SWK 754)
Title of Study
Enhanced Research Methods
Reflection Report for the Proposed
The Apex of Involvement? An
Evaluation of Mental Health Workers'
Experiences of Co-Production in a
Recovery College Project
Abstract
Context
Recovery Colleges (RCs) are a relatively recent innovation in mental health
services. They are education providers offering mental health and wellbeing
education, with their unique selling point being that all work is meant to be coproduced
between 'peer' educators (those with lived experience of mental
health difficulties) and mental health practitioners.
The proposed evaluation sought to build on an earlier systematic narrative
review (Bester, 2019) that investigated if co-production was meaningfully
occurring within the RC setting. There have been no primary qualitative studies
have undertaken regarding RCs undertaken in Northern Ireland, and none
known explicitly investigating if co-production operates genuinely in the setting.
As such, this evaluation would have investigated how practitioners within a local
health and social care (HSC) Trust had experienced co-production in their local
RC, and if working with 'peers' had impact on their practice with patients and
service users.
Planned Methodology and Methods
The evaluation was intended to be undertaken through a series of semistructured
interviews, followed by an inductive thematic analysis aided by the
NVivo software package.
A purposive sampling strategy had been developed to recruit participants in the
study. Potential participants were to be practitioner trainers within Belfast
Recovery College (BRC), of which there are around 40. As Fincham (2008)
notes, expected response rates to calls for participation in studies tend to run
around 25 - 30%, which would have resulted in around 10 - 12 participants (as