TY - JOUR
T1 - Staff experiences of the REFOCUS intervention to support recovery in mental health
T2 - A qualitative study nested within a cluster randomised controlled trial
AU - Clarke, Eleanor
AU - Leamy, Mary
AU - Bird, Victoria
AU - Janosik, M.
AU - Jordan, Harriet
AU - Le Boutillier, Clair
AU - Macpherson, Rob
AU - Riley, Genevieve
AU - Sanger, Kevanne
AU - Williams, Julie
AU - Slade, Mike
PY - 2020/4/25
Y1 - 2020/4/25
N2 - BackgroundThe REFOCUS intervention was a whole team, complex intervention, designed to increase the recovery support offered by community based, mental health staff. The intervention consisted of two components: Recovery promoting relationships, which focused on how staff work with service users, and Recovery working practices, which focused on what activities and tasks staff and service users could do together. AimWe aimed to investigate the experiences of community mental health workers using the REFOCUS intervention to support personal recovery.MethodIn the context of the REFOCUS Trial (ISRCTN02507940), 28 semi-structured individual interviews and 4 staff focus groups, with 24 participants were conducted and thematically analysed. ResultsStaff valued coaching training and used coaching skills to have tough as well as empowering, motivational conversations with service users. They were positive about the resources within the ‘working practices’ intervention component. The whole team training and reflection sessions helped create team cultures, structures and processes which were conducive to supporting recovery practice.ConclusionsWe recommend the wider use of coaching skills, strengths-based assessments, and approaches to support clinicians to broaden their understanding of service users’ values, treatment preferences and to support striving towards personally-meaningful goals. Staff who used these working practices changed their beliefs about what their service users were capable of, and became more hopeful practitioners. A team-based approach to support recovery creates a learning environment in which staff can support and challenge one another, making sustained practice change more likely.
AB - BackgroundThe REFOCUS intervention was a whole team, complex intervention, designed to increase the recovery support offered by community based, mental health staff. The intervention consisted of two components: Recovery promoting relationships, which focused on how staff work with service users, and Recovery working practices, which focused on what activities and tasks staff and service users could do together. AimWe aimed to investigate the experiences of community mental health workers using the REFOCUS intervention to support personal recovery.MethodIn the context of the REFOCUS Trial (ISRCTN02507940), 28 semi-structured individual interviews and 4 staff focus groups, with 24 participants were conducted and thematically analysed. ResultsStaff valued coaching training and used coaching skills to have tough as well as empowering, motivational conversations with service users. They were positive about the resources within the ‘working practices’ intervention component. The whole team training and reflection sessions helped create team cultures, structures and processes which were conducive to supporting recovery practice.ConclusionsWe recommend the wider use of coaching skills, strengths-based assessments, and approaches to support clinicians to broaden their understanding of service users’ values, treatment preferences and to support striving towards personally-meaningful goals. Staff who used these working practices changed their beliefs about what their service users were capable of, and became more hopeful practitioners. A team-based approach to support recovery creates a learning environment in which staff can support and challenge one another, making sustained practice change more likely.
KW - Recovery, Complex interventions, Process evaluation, Psychosis, Cluster randomised controlled trial, Staff experiences, REFOCUS
M3 - Book/Film/Article review
JO - Archives of Psychiatry and Mental Health
JF - Archives of Psychiatry and Mental Health
ER -