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Contributors to this DVD talk from personal experience about the social impacts of living with a mental illness, including stigma and discrimination. Content includes the experiences of two carers and two people who have had experience of mental health problems. In addition, Professor Graham Thornicroft talks about the recent research evidence in nine key areas. Additional clips of other people's experiences also add to the evidence in these nine areas.

This film is from a project which examines social work from the perspective of service users and carers across three countries, Northern Ireland, Slovenia and Spain. Social work students from Queen’s University, Belfast, Northern Ireland, the University of Ljubljana, Slovenia and the University of Alicante, Spain interviewed service users and carers on film using seven questions developed to examine key areas of social work skills, knowledge and values.

Background  This paper describes a novel combination of inclusive methods to evaluate health and health promotion needs of service users (clients) with intellectual disability. Sixty centres provide disability services to over 900 clients with intellectual disability in the East Coast Area Health Board region of Ireland (population approximately 325 000). This is the first known triangulated large-scale approach to inclusive needs assessment of clients using regional disability services in Ireland.

Outlines some important messages from a major project, carried out by Dementia Voice, to consult people with dementia and carers about the services they receive. The consultations were part of a larger project, funded by Devon social services, to help care agencies in Devon to develop guidelines for intermediate care for people with dementia.

A shared approach to improving the care and support for people with dementia, their families and carers receive following a diagnosis. The declaration sets out: a shared commitment to joint action across government, health, social care, the third sector and all other relevant partners; the ambition to deliver better quality post-diagnostic care; and the need to deliver integrated and effective services that meet the needs of people with dementia and their families and carers.

The literature on carer burden, needs and interventions developed to address care needs of those caring for people with psychosis are reviewed. The findings of a study which explored the views and experiences of carers, service users and professionals with regard to what carers of people with psychosis need from mental health services are then reported.

This study investigated, by way of interview (n=45), the needs of those caring for a person with dementia and their satisfaction with current services in the Caerphilly County Borough of South Wales. Carers reported having the most difficulty coping with the demands on their time and the emotional strain associated with caring. Carers requested more information regarding available services, the diagnosis of dementia and the legal and financial aspects of caring.

This DVD has been developed for those caring for people with dementia. It explains how symptoms are caused and how they affect the behaviour patterns of people with dementia. Expert advice from a consultant psychiatrist and a clinical psychologist is included. Carers also share their experience of learning what it is like to live with a partner with dementia.

This article discusses the findings about the role of face-to-face carers groups which emerged from a qualitative, interpretive study of 37 former carers' experiences in the UK. The study was informed by grounded theory and semi-structured in-depth interviews were used as the main method of data collection. The advantages and disadvantages of carers groups during caring and post-caring that were identified are presented.