“The best thing to happen to me was getting psychosis” - The power of running groups as a psycho social intervention.
Poster B100, Friday, October 21, 11:30 am - 1:00 pm, Le Baron
Simon Hall1, Tatenda Pswarayi2; 1University of West England, 2Service User
This is a poster depicting a service user’s journey over the six years from when he first developed psychosis - his name is Tatenda. The use of Psycho-Social Interventions was fundamental to his journey of recovery and learning to accept and value his illness (Bach and Walker, 2015). A combination of individual and group therapy is essential to improve service outcomes from psychosis (Smith, 2012) and this is his personal story; how a combination of interventions have led Tatenda to help co -Produce learning materials for Pre-reg nursing students and lead on lessons (How to run groups) but more importantly for Tatenda he is about to start University this September 2017. Key elements have been psychoeducation (Vreeland, 2012) but for him and his peers being central to a peer support group that he calls his brothers and sisters were the most important factor in his recovery. Tatenda and his peers live in a rural area and key element of his recovery and the nursing team was to overcome the barriers of social isolation. The main groups developed was through a bi-annual meeting where the service users decide what groups they needed. These compromised of ‘explaining the unexplainable ‘- a systemic approach to voice hearing, sports and activity groups and family inclusive psycho-education groups to name a few.
Topic Area: Psychosocial Interventions