What’s the project?
Severe Mental Illnesses (SMIs) arise from the complex interactions of biological, psychological, and social factors. These factors overlap but also work together to influence the effect of SMIs across an individual’s life.
However, most frontline treatments for SMIs target biological and psychological factors. This hub will focus instead on social factors: the conditions in which people are born, grow up, work, live, and age, and the wider set of forces and systems that shape daily life.
The RAISE (Recovery And resIlience: Social dEterminants) study aims to generate new knowledge on the role of social factors in influencing the course and outcomes of SMIs and explore how we can harness “protective” social factors to build resilience and recovery in people with SMIs.
Such an approach would draw on and encourage the use of resources in people’s social networks and in their wider community and may be more cost-effective and sustainable.
Find out more
We are looking for eight people with experience of Severe Mental Illness (SMI) – namely schizophrenia, bipolar, other psychosis, and major depression – and their informal carers to form a group called a Lived Experience Advisory Panel (LEAP).
We are especially encouraging applications from people connected to the areas our work will focus on: London, Warwickshire and the Midlands, Liverpool, Newcastle-on-Tyne, and the South West Peninsula.
Mental health issues and experiences affect everyone, but involvement in research does not always reflect this. Therefore, we are actively seeking applications for the LEAP from Black, Asian and other minoritised ethnicity groups.
We would also like to hear from those who have gone through difficult life experiences or are part of other marginalised groups (for example those with disabilities, those from low income backgrounds, and LGBTQIA+ people).
We would also like to hear from people who have not had the opportunity to be involved in research before.
The LEAP will be expected to attend meetings both online and face-to-face (although the majority of meetings will be online). We will try to help in case anyone does not have a suitable computer/phone to take part in online meetings.
Meetings will take place four times a year involve giving opinions on the study, its methods and progress. There will also be some tasks between meetings.
The role is for five years, but we understand people might not be able to stay onboard for the entire time, but we hope they will.
- Have a stable Internet connection and be able to join on a device that is suitable for online videoconferencing (a laptop, tablet or smartphone).
- Be able to travel into London for in person meetings once a year.
- Are passionate about improving mental health services for people experience SMI and ensuring the voice of service users, carers and families are heard for developing solutions to improving services.
- Be able to critically engage with each other and listen, respect and challenge differing opinions.
Panel members will be paid £25 per hour. For online meetings we can also pay a £5 data payment to cover the cost of internet use.
All reasonable travel expenses for in-person meetings will be covered.
To apply, please complete the following expression of interest form and email it to John Gibson.
Deadline for expressions of interest: Tuesday 7th May 2024
If you are not able to fill out the application form or if you have any questions, please get in contact with John by email or phone on 07497 302 647.
The deadline for expressions of interest is Tuesday 7th May 2024.
Please note that the McPin Foundation regularly promotes opportunities on behalf of other institutions; we are not responsible for the continuation or contents of further correspondence with any project partners where we are not listed as the project main point of contact.
