Developing a Users & Carers involvement group for My Home Life: what have we learned?

My Home Life Picture

The Quality of Care for Older People research centre hosts My Home Life; a social movement emphasising quality of health, care and management for all those who live, work, visit and die in care  homes.

Date:  Wednesday 24 June 2015 at 3-4pm

Venue:  Room A226, College Building, City University London

It is important to the integrity of health and care services research to include the experiences of service users and carers.  My Home Life within the Quality of Care for Older People research centre at City University London is entering the next phase of its work, sustainability and community engagement, and a dedicated users and carers involvement group is central to this.

Join speakers Professor Julienne Meyer and Dr Anne Laybourne as they reflect on our experiences of developing My Home Life’s Users & Carers Involvement group, present our expectations and report what happened in reality, lessons learned and thoughts for sustaining this group in the future.

 

New Case Studies and Practical Tips for User and Carer Engagement

We have received two new case studies this week one from Language and Communications on Aphasia and one from Mental Health.

Language and Communication Sciences: Example of “Stories with aphasia”

Read about the project  “Stories with aphasia” set up by Drs Madeline Cruice and Lucy Dipper for individuals with aphasia to experience telling their story successfully.  The project is designed to connect Londoners who have aphasia with volunteers who act as story-buddies, assisting each person to produce a digital multimedia story.

Mental Health: Incorporation of service user experience into a module on experiencing acute care in mental health

This case study includes some very positive feedback from students demonstrating the influence of service user experience in the classroom:

‘I personally loved it. I was fascinated by her story and what she has been through and could have listened to her for hours. It was interesting to hear from her perspective how she felt about the stigma and also about how the medication worked for her. I’d love to know even more about her experience and I think she is very brave!’

Practical Tips for User and Carer Engagement

If you need support with regards to user and carer activities remember to look at the resources listed under Guidelines, including helpful tips such as paying service users and carers and practical considerations when involving users and carers.

If you wish to speak to someone about user and carer activity please do contact your division’s Community Engagement representative listed on the key contacts page.

Warm welcome

Welcome to our weblog. This site is designed to promote and support the involvement of patients, service users, carers and local communities in all educational and research activities across the School of Health Sciences.

You will find guidelines, suggestions, useful tips, resources, case studies and much more. Over time, we also hope people will use this blog to post examples of innovative practice, successful ideas, and even stories of where things went wrong!

Take a look around and please sign up for email updates when new posts are uploaded.

Best wishes,

Alan

Alan Simpson

Chair, Community Engagement (User and Carer Involvement) Strategy Committee