McPin Foundation’s patient and public involvement methods week

The McPin Foundation is committed to using research to improve the mental health of people in communities everywhere. We champion the role of lived experience expertise in all aspects of mental health research. We employ and work with people with mental health problems to provide advice on research and deliver research projects. We fund studentships, supporting young researchers to develop a research career in mental health. We research topics that matter most to our supporters – employment, stigma, personalised support, wellbeing, young people’s mental health and new models of care including peer support.

On Monday we begin a week of activity aimed at highlighting methods of Patient and Public Involvement (PPI) in mental health research. We will be publishing a number of new papers and contributions from our team during the week exploring how we work and the challenges it poses. They draw on our experience of trying to put our principles into practice and what we have learnt  from our friends and collaborators. What we have learnt over the past 3 years is that PPI is not easy but it is important in driving forward quality mental health research. What we have learnt over the past 3 years is that PPI is not easy but it is important in driving forward quality mental health research.

Next week we will be:

• Sharing the guide we have developed for staff and the people we work with on our approach to PPI and the language we use. We hope that it might also be helpful for others. It is not a definitive statement but more of a snapshot of where our thinking and practice has reached. Update you can now read the slides and Vanessa’s blog about the process of creating them.
• Launching our methods workshop series with the first on ‘Integrating lived experience expertise into mental health research teams’ on Wednesday 30th November. Update The slides the presenters used are available here, our policy manager Ian blogged about his initial reactions, and a fuller summary is available to download.
• Publishing the second in our series of Talking Point Papers titled “Patient and public involvement in research, why not?” authored by Kirsten Morgan.  This paper examines some of the objections and barriers to PPI in mental health research and will be released on Thursday 1st December. Update you can now read the paper and Thomas’ blog introducing it
• Publishing blogs by our staff  discussing their personal take on the issues raised throughout the week.
  • The first blog is from Laura on “Who are the Experts by Experience”
  • The second from a Lived Experience Researcher on “Who is a Peer Anyway?”
  • Richard and Rose produced a video on how Richard uses his lived experience in his research
  • Richard responded to new research on power and symbolic capital in PPI in health research
  • Ruth on Lived Experience in Research – Opportunities and Problems

We hope you can contribute to the discussion. Do check back on our website (www.mcpin.org) for launched resources and follow us on Twitter (@McPinFoundation) or our Facebook page where we will be talking about this work.