Blogs by Julie Billsborough

Using Lived Experience in Evaluating Mental Health Peer Support
by Andreja Mesaric | Julie Billsborough | Rajvi Kotecha-Hazzard | Richard Currie | Sarah Gibson

This essay was originally published as the afterword to the early research findings of the evaluation of the Side by Side programme. In it the researchers who used their lived experience of mental health problems and peer support whilst working on the evaluation reflect on how including that expertise from experience strengthened the research. 

Collaborating with people with lived experience

Research methods

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Reflections from working on an evaluation project: Your Experience in Mind
by Julie Billsborough

We are keen to look at new ways of involving mental health service users and carers in research. Part of our commitment to developing new approaches has been to investigate the things that have worked well and not so well about the methods we have tried in our own research and evaluation studies. We will publish a series of methods papers describing our work. Our first methods paper describes the 'Survey Champion' approach used in an evaluation of Local Minds.

Collaborating with people with lived experience

Improving mental health support

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Mental health intelligence network
by Julie Billsborough

I attended the launch of the Public Health England pilot website a few weeks back – the National Mental Health, Dementia and Neurology networks. I found the event interesting, partly because I was involved in the PHE consultation report to gather people’s views  on the design and accessibility of the site, but also because I am keen to use this tool myself to campaign for change in my locality.

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Ups and Downs
by Julie Billsborough | Roger Smith

We have been involved in a study looking at experiences of support and treatment in bipolar disorder. And it has recently been published in the Journal of Mental Health so it felt like a good time to reflect on this piece of work.

Improving mental health support

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