Funded mini-projects
(518) Professional Education Public Involvement Network – a resource to facilitate collaborative working and practice development
N.B. The information below is authored by the mini-project applicants, not by staff of the subject centre.
This text represents the views and opinions of the mini-project team
only, not those of the subject centre or its affiliates.
See the list of resources for this mini-project..
Principal investigator
Penny Morris, University of Leeds
Full list of project partners
1. Leeds University Faculty of Medicine and Health*
2. Mental Health in Higher Education*
3. Kim Scarborough, National Teaching Fellow, University of the West of England
*Currently involved as partners in supporting the Professional Education Public Involvement Network (PEPIN) – a Jiscmail group: http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/archives/pepin.html
Topic
This is a COMMUNITIES OF PRACTICE proposal ,support dissemination of good practice to a wider audience ,promote collaboration to enhance new and existing partnerships ,pump prime feasibility studies in innovative areas ,raise awareness of new national initiatives, recommendations and government policy ,promote staff development
Background
User and carer involvement in learning and teaching is emerging as a key issue, both within medical programmes (Hasman et al, 2006; Spencer et al., 2000) and across the disciplines in UK higher education (see http://www.mhhe.heacademy.ac.uk/guides/refs.asp).
There is a growing body of activity, as evidenced at recent international conferences (eg. Farrell et al, 2006) - and much to be gained by the sharing of ideas and approaches.
That the time is ripe for consolidation of such activity is evidenced by the success of the recently developed Professional Education Public Involvement Network (PEPIN) discussion list, and was recognised at the first MEDEV Medical Leadership Initiative workshop (Leeds, January 2007). PEPIN currently has 108 members and a growing number of active contributors, but would be much strengthened by the availability of a complementary web resource – to facilitate networking and the exchange of knowledge, and act as a repository for resources and links.
The recent appointment of a National Teaching Fellow with a strong interest in user and carer involvement in education provides the opportunity for a collaborative bid (for HEA funding through the NTF project strand) for development of a single web portal. This would aim to develop the work of the PEPIN community of practice, link it to the MEDEV constituency and those of other HEA subject centres, and ensure its sustainability. Collaborative work in planning such a bid will enhance both its likelihood of success and the quality and usefulness of what results.
We would aim to draw on, and link, the following areas of activity:
• Higher Education Academy initiatives: including mhhe, mini-projects (HS&P and MEDEV); research funding (MEDEV and the Psychology Network), & user and carer involvement at major conferences (SWAP).
• Developers of User and Carer Involvement in Education (DUCIE) – an mhhe network for user and carer involvement development workers in HEIs.
• The Service User Survivor Trainers Network (SUSTN)
• The work of the Picker Institute
• The recently established National Centre for Involvement (Warwick University)
• Two international events on user and carer involvement in professional education (Vancouver 2005, Cambridge 2006); a third planned for November 2007
• The annual mental health training forum conference
• Activity within a range of CETLs
• The Skills for Health Partnership Framework for Quality Assuring Healthcare Education
• Shaping Our Lives and its networking website
• Developments within the Royal College of Psychiatry and other professional bodies.
• The HEFCE call for bids for Beacons for Public Engagement in Higher Education
• The resource guide produced by SCIE (Levin, 2004) and a body of work under the auspices of Skills for Care
This timely proposal would enable us to capitalise on future funding opportunities - maximising opportunities for collaborative activity and avoiding reinvention of the wheel. It would draw together disparate initiatives within the Higher Education Academy itself - with a view a) to developing an overarching strand of user and carer involvement work and b) answering questions about its efficacy: what works, why and for whom.
Proposed activities
• Preliminary meeting of partners – April/May 2007
• Exploration of alternatives and development of a blog or wiki – May/June
• Launch of the Community of Practice – July 2007. An open event which would be activity based, enabling networking and development of the knowledge base.
• Work on funding proposal for PEPIN website – July to October 2007
• Submission of funding proposal – October 2007
• Midway meeting – at Grange over Sands conference “Authenticity to Action – user and carer involvement in learning and teaching in higher education” in November 2007. This will ensure dissemination of interim outcomes and allow for planning of the second phase of work.
• Further development of the community of practice – with a particular emphasis on ensuring a wide spread of involvement across disciplines and interest groups.
• Final meeting – July 2008. Review, evaluation and next steps.
Project activity will be disseminated through the PEPIN Jiscmail list; Higher Education Academy subject centre discussion lists, newsletters and e-bulletins; the Mental Health in Higher Education project outputs; the conference (Authenticity to Action) in November 2007 and other relevant conferences and events such as the annual Mental Health Training Forum conference; as well as internally through the University of Leeds and relevant CETLs.
Proposed outcomes
• Increased awareness, amongst medical educators and across the higher education community as a whole, of work done to date and materials produced, including research carried out into user and carer involvement in education; evidence of increased take-up of resources (eg Tew et al, 2004)
• Preliminary development of a web-based portal – bringing together in one place materials and links with a focus on user and carer involvement in professional education in health and social care. This would act as a resource for a) academics and practice educators b) user and carer involvement development workers c) user and carer trainers and d) students with an interest in this area; facilitating dialogue and the sharing of ideas.
• Preparation of a funding bid for development and maintenance of a more sophisticated web portal, with increased profile and functionality.
• Increased evidence of collaborative activity between individuals and initiatives relating to user and carer involvement in professional education, the development of evidence based and ethical practice and effective evaluation strategies – eg production of DUCIE guidelines for user and carer involvement development workers.
• Raised awareness, within undergraduate medical education and across the higher education academy as a whole, of the benefits and challenges of user and carer involvement in professional education . Evidence of activity/interest in some areas as yet to be engaged
User and carer input into professional education has been shown to be of benefit to students (Tew et al, 2004; Felton and Stickley 2004, Masters et al 2002), who generally rate such teaching highly. The quality of the learning experience is, however, dependent on inputs being well designed, with careful thought given to the needs of all stakeholders involved. This implies that user and carer involvement is not restricted to isolated teaching inputs but built in to programmes through opportunities for involvement in other areas. This initiative, through enabling good practice to be shared, will help to maximise the quality of learning experiences for students and reduce re-invention of the wheel. Students with an interest in this area (across all disciplines) will also be encouraged to become members of this community of practice, completing an important feedback loop. It is anticipated that the larger bid, which this proposal is intended to support, will encompass a focus on the training and development needs of service users and carers and link with other policy imperatives (including self management, employability for people who have long term conditions and the development of social enterprise).
This project will benefit the existing community of practice (PEPIN), enabling us to develop its reach and inclusivity. Importantly, it will provide a means of building bridges between those with responsibility for programme management (eg deans of medical and dental schools) and the growing body of practice knowledge at ground level.
Expertise of grant holder and project team
Leeds University Faculty of Medicine and Healthcare
The Faculty has a history of working with the public in research, service development, and professional education. Champions for involvement in learning at the Schools of Healthcare and Medicine (Penny Morris, Fiona O’Neill and John Sandars) are supported at the highest level, with three established posts.
The Medical Education Unit has developed a reference group of users and carers. This builds on a series of small initiatives, expanding community participation in teaching; developing user and carer input into interprofessional learning and involving mental health service users (the latter with MEDEV funding). Trudie Roberts (head of the School of Medicine) is part of the MEDEV medical leadership enquiry into involvement and has appointed two lecturers (Vikram Jha and Naomi Quinton) to research in this area and undertake a systematic review (also with MEDEV support). Penny Morris and Fiona O’Neill organised last year’s conference on “Patient and Community Voices in Professional Learning” and, with Chris Essen, were involved in its precursor: “Where’s the Patient Voice in Health Professional Education”, (Penny on the taskforce).
Chris Essen is Involvement Development Worker within the School of Healthcare; alongside Academic Lead for Involvement - Sam Samociuk. Their work is steered by an Involvement Strategy Implementation Group, chaired by the Acting Head of School – Paul Marshall. Chris is an active member of the DUCIE network and, with Jill Anderson, administratively ‘co-owns’ the PEPIN Jiscmail list. He is active in the Public and Learner Advisory Group at Skills for Health and has been asked to advise on involvement at HEA Health Sciences and Practice Subject Centre departmental workshops, to review mini-project bids and act as a ‘named contact’ for a successful bid.
Leeds University leads a project across the Universities of West Yorkshire to develop and support patient and public voices in professional education (linking with the assessment CETL, ALPS). The Faculty is forming an interdisciplinary Centre encouraging collaborative approaches to learning with communities, linked to a University-wide bid for a Beacon of Public Engagement.
Mental Health in Higher Education
Mental Health in Higher Education (Jill Anderson and Lynn Tang) has had user and carer involvement as a central strand of its activity, which has included production of a good practice guide and organisation of a national conference. It established and supports the Developers of User and Carer Involvement (DUCIE) network and co-owns the PEPIN jiscmail list. mhhe, in partnership with the Centre of Excellence in Interdisciplinary Mental health at the University of Birmingham, draws much from their expertise in involving service users and carers.
Kim Scarborough (University of the West of England)
Kim Scarborough has a Higher Education Academy National Teaching Fellowship. She has worked, with users and carers and colleagues, on building capacity for active citizenship; and on creative ways to make involvement a reality for people with learning difficulties. Kim is currently developing web resources for academics and users and carers where joint learning will be a key function. Kim’s work would link closely with the proposed bid.
Similar work
As the main focus of this bid is the development of an online networking tool, collaboration with others will be a central focus. This application builds on considerable broader mapping activity to date (see list of initiatives above) and will enable us to continue to develop and refine our links.
In addition, we will:
• build on mhhe’s links with the Higher Education Academy subject centres for Medicine, Dentistry & Veterinary Medicine (MEDEV), Psychology, Social Policy and Social Work and Health Sciences and Practice, ensuring connection with their initiatives in this area as well as supporting new developments. John Spencer’s mini-project on ‘Identifying good practice in user involvement in medical and dental education’ and workshop activity associated with it, will assist in ensuring that activity within medical education is reflected, and development promoted.
• build on developing activity with the Centres of Excellence in Teaching and Learning – in particular the Centre of Excellence in Interdisciplinary Mental Health, the Centre of Excellence in Mental Health and Social Work, the ALPS CETL and the CETL for Health North East – all of which have active user and carer involvement strands.
• explicitly develop our links with the emerging Service User Survivor Trainers Network – also in the process of developing their web presence and activity: www.sustn.org and with the Mental Health Research Network.
• attend the conference “Authenticity to Action: user involvement in learning and teaching in higher education” in November 2007
The success of the project will depend upon the use of skills in network building and ‘boundary spanning’. It is envisaged that the project would be steered by a core group of project partners. Day-to-day co-ordination would be provided by the PEPIN list-owners (Chris Essen and Jill Anderson), along with project partners. A sum of money has been identified for the financing of project partners’ time and/or buying in of support with coordination from elsewhere.
Relevant journal articles
Basset, T., Campbell, P. & Anderson, J. (2006) Service user/survivor involvement in mental health education and training: overcoming the barriers, Social Work Education
DH (1999) Patient and Public Involvement in the new NHS London: Department of Health
Farrell, C, Towle, A & Godolphin, W. (2006) Where’s the Patient Voice in Health Professional Education, Vancouver: University of British Columbia
Felton, A. and Stickley.T. (2004) Pedagogy, power and service user involvement Journal of Psychiatry and Mental Health Nursing 11 :89-98
Hasman A, Coulter A, Askham, J. Education for partnership:developments in medical education Oxford: Picker Institute Europe, 2006
Levin, E.(2004) Involving service users and carers in social work education. London: SCIE (Social Care Institute for Excellence).
Masters, H et al (2002) Involving mental health service users and carers in curriculum development: moving beyond ‘classroom’ involvement Journal of Psychiatric and Mental Health Nursing 9 309-316
Scarborough, K. Broussine, E. Summers, N. (2006) Taking control: University education helps people with learning disabilities ‘make change happen’ Learning Disability Practice 9:9 28-31
Spencer, J., Blackmore, D., Heard, S., McCrorie, P., McHaffie, D. and Scherpbier, A.(2000) Patient oriented learning: a review of the role of the patient in the education of medical students. Medical Education. 34, pp 851-857
Tew, J., Gell, C. and Foster, S. (2004) Learning from Experience: Involving service users and carers in mental health education and training, York: Higher Education Academy/ NIMHE West Midlands/ Trent Workforce Development Confederation
Contact details
Grant holder: Penny Morris,
University of Leeds
Amount awarded: ££2600
Subject centre project contact: Suzanne Hardy
Reports
See the final report for this project..
Other resources published by this mini-project
See the list of resources for this mini-project..
