More information
Description
As part of student education at VSPJ, we wish to modernise and innovate teaching in the mental health field. We will strengthen the compulsory course Introduction to Psychiatry and Psychopathology by involving experts by experience. Experts lecture on the latest knowledge and trends in mental health care and consciously use their experience with mental health problems to benefit others. They are "living" evidence that recovery is possible. It is not about the spontaneous sharing of their story. Experts must have their experience very well processed, and they apply only relevant topics in teaching. The goal of sharing experience, in this case, is not uncontrolled "opening up", but achieving an educational effect.
We are cooperating on the project with the Centre for Mental Health Care Development in Prague, which will train our new experts by experience in teaching skills, help to prepare teaching materials, enable the sharing of expertise and provide support from senior experts by experience. The Norwegian project partner, Department for Work, Social Welfare and Housing of the City of Bergen, brings inspiration and expertise regarding building many experts by experience, their involvement in secondary and tertiary education, the further education of professionals, and widespread participation in the community. We will share good practices with both partner institutions in innovating courses related to mental health care.
Summary of project results
The project Innovation and development of courses focused on mental health enabled to increase and expand the quality of teaching of mental health courses at the College of Polytechnics Jihlava; it deepened the existing cooperation with the Centre for Mental Health Care Development (CMHCD), enabled to establish partnership on professional and personal level with colleagues from Bergen, Norway and to involve Experts by experience - experts with their own experience with mental health difficulties. Last but not least, it has allowed to spread the value of lived experience and the conscious handling of it, as peer educators need to have their experience very well developed and only apply relevant topics in their teaching. The aim of sharing experiences in this case is not to open up uncontrollably, but to achieve an educational effect. This is also why the team members had the opportunity for supervision.
The position of peer lecturer in the Czech Republic was first introduced by the Centre for the Mental Health Care Development (CMHCD) in 2013, later establishing the first Recovery College in the Czech Republic, and it is the principles of recovery colleges that we have been inspired by in this project, as they provide a certain value framework that we have applied at the VŠPJ. The CMHCD became our project partner together with the staff of the City of Bergen from the Department of Labour, Social Affairs and Housing, which has been successful in making people with experience of mental health difficulties highly employable in the labour market and in education.
The following activities served us to achieve the project objectives:
- Expanding the base of peer tutors
- Setting up project evaluation with researchers from South-Eastern Norway University
- Visiting organisations and the Recovery College in Bergen
- Preparation of peer tutors for teaching
- Their self-experience in the role of students
- Training of tutoring skills Innovating the course with respect to new peer tutors and their experience
- Innovating the curriculum and developing an online version of the compulsory course
- Preparation and piloting of a new optional course
- Several multiplier events and Final conference and workshop
Thanks to the project, we have six newly trained Experts by experience who teach an optional course every autumn semester and participate in the teaching of a compulsory course every spring semester. The optional course, Recovery as an Opportunity on the Way to Mental Health, includes four modules related to mental health (early adulthood; sexuality; mindfulness; spirituality, culture and media). The course is experiential, interactive; therefore, the capacity is set at 20 students. The title of the required course has been revised from "Psychiatry and Psychopathology" to "Psychiatry and Mental Health", and Experts introduce students to the concepts of Recovery, Selfmanagement, Peer Programs and Destigmatization. During the duration of the project, 72 full-time students and 103 part-time students have completed the courses. The effect of the teaching was monitored through written student reflections, focus groups and questionnaire surveys as part of the evaluation, from which we provide the following quotation: "Overall, I rate the peer lecturing very positively and I am happy and grateful that I was able to have this course. I dare to say that I remember much more of the theory than I did without the Experts by experience. I enjoyed the activities that were provided for us on all the days and I took away an idea from each lesson." As part of the multiplier events we introduced over 70 people to the project.
Summary of bilateral results
Cooperation with our project partners was crucial. CMHCD shared their experiences and knowledge from Experts by experience position introducer in CZ point of view. It was important to see Expert´s role in context of the Czech culture too. Norwegian partner introduced us their system of involving Experts by experience (peer support workers) in various organizations and positions in Bergen. It was interesting to see some differences in culture e.g. people in Norway are used to establish associations which represent “voice” of many people who would like to open dialog about new approaches, concepts etc.Thanks to the partnerships we have contacts with services in Bergen where our students can travel. We have the opportunity to develop the Recovery College in Jihlava and other topics that we have come across while working with project partners. Thank you for the opportunity!