How Do Women Experience Navigating Support After Domestic Abuse?

Research has highlighted the multiple barriers women who have experienced domestic violence and abuse (DVA) face in ‘disclosing’ abuse. However, ‘disclosure’ is but the first step in women accessing ‘support’ for a wide range of needs; less is known about women’s experiences once they have accessed ‘support’. Existing research has frequently identified what is termed ‘secondary victimisation’ within services, however this has typically been studied within separate spheres - medical, legal and so on – preventing a more integrated understanding of women’s experiences. This research applies a feminist perspective to explore how women experience accessing ‘support’ from formal and informal systems after DVA, and considers what constitutes support, for them. The research involved consultation and collaboration with service users and staff at a specialist DVA organisation. Nine women who were engaged with the organisation took part in semi-structured interviews. The interviews were analysed using thematic analysis within a critical realist contextualist epistemology. Three main themes were identified: theme one, “It’s the Seeing It and Acknowledging It”: Who, Where and How?; theme two, The Duality of Help, and theme three, “We’ve Had Enough”. Theme one considers how constructing experiences as abuse intersected with women’s experiences of ‘help’. The second theme explores the paradoxes associated with navigating ‘support systems’ and their possible harms. The final theme explores how women describe being impacted by and responding to their experiences, both of abuse and within ‘support systems’. Results of the analysis are discussed in relation to empirical and theoretical literature. In discussing findings, the use of power within services is explored and the importance of relational aspects of care. Implications are considered at a community, service and research level

Implementing family involvement in the treatment of patients with psychosis: a systematic review of facilitating and hindering factors

This paper presents independent research and was partially funded by the National Institute for Health Research Collaboration for Leadership in Applied Health Research and Care (NIHR CLAHRC) North Thames at Bart's Health NHS Trust

The nature and extent of service user involvement in critical care research and quality improvement; a scoping review of the literature.

The importance of involving patients and the public in health care research is globally recognised, but how best to do this in critical care is unclear. The aim of this first published review was to explore the extent and nature of evidence on service user involvement in critical care research and quality improvement. Using the scoping review framework described by Arksey & O’Malley (2005) a team of service user and critical care researchers searched eleven online databases, reviewed relevant websites, conducted forward and backward citation searching and contacted subject experts. Extracted data were subjected to a narrative synthesis based on the objectives of the review. Findings from a broad range of evidence support that involvement is becoming more commonplace and that experiences are generally positive. Data extracted from 34 publications identify that involvement is most commonly reported at the level of consultation or participation in project teams, however, the extent to which involvement impacts on projects output remains unclear. Key barriers and facilitators relate to the challenge of recruiting a diverse group of service users, dealing with power hierarchies, being adaptable and effective consideration of the resource requirements. More research is required to identify the most effective methods to support the opportunity for involvement and more thorough reporting of service user involvement practices is strongly recommended

Not \u27Just a Talking Head\u27: Experiences of Australian Public Mental Health Clinicians Implementing a Dialogical Family Therapy Approach for Young People with Severe Mental Health Concerns

2020 Australian Association of Family Therapy The evidence for efficacy of family-based approaches for psychological problems is extensive, although model-specific effects have not been established. However, implementation of family therapy approaches in tertiary mental health settings has been challenging due to factors such as negative staff attitudes and difficulties engaging families. Open Dialogue is an emerging network-based therapy that has a focus on genuine collaboration, flexibility, authenticity, and openness. This study describes the experiences and perspectives of clinicians, service users and families, following training in Open Dialogue, within a child and adolescent mental health service, and an adolescent inpatient unit in public mental health services. A total of 16 participants (11 clinicians and five service users and family members) took part in semi-structured interviews regarding their experiences with Open Dialogue. Interpretative phenomenological analysis was used to analyse interview transcripts. Four major themes were identified from interviews with clinicians: valuing responses from families, learning from families and privileging their expertise, hesitation about doing family therapy, and engaging with authenticity and flexibility. Three themes emerged from family interviews: hesitation about doing family therapy, valuing collaboration and openness, and opening space for more talk. These themes are relevant to challenges of family therapy in public mental health settings and future directions for implementation