UARbh

22
newparadigm Spring 2015
Psychiatric Disability Services
of Victoria (VICSERV)
The 50% challenge – embracing
the consumer workforce
by Indigo Daya
Our work can never be just about health, but it is also inherently
political, rich with complex ethical dilemmas, and it serves a group of
people who largely experience profound social, economic and health
disadvantage and discrimination.
• Altered attitudes to mental illness, breaking down stigma and
fostering hope (see Mowbray, Moxley & Collins, 1998; Repper
& Carter, 2012; Stratford, Brophy & Castle, 2012)
• A Cochrane review found that ‘in delivering the same functions and
activities, peer support workers produced outcomes comparable
with their non-peer colleagues’ (see Pitt et al, 2013).
Further, the consumer workforce offers benefits for mental health
services and the broader system:
• Establishing connections with ‘hard to reach’ clients
(see Sells, Davison, Jewell, Falzer & Rowe, 2006)
• Acting as a bridge between clients and staff
(see Davidson, Bellamy, Guy & Miller, 2012)
• Enhancing overall staff commitment to recovery
(see Bradstreet & Pratt, 2010; O’Hagan, 2011)
• Educating non-peer professionals about the experience of living with
mental health problems, contributing to empathy and understanding
(see Walker & Bryant, 2013)
• Peer workers may assist in reducing coercive mental health
practice and changing staff attitudes towards seclusion and restraint
(see Ashcraft & Anthony, 2008).
Who is the consumer workforce?
A lot of language gets thrown around in this space: peers, lived
experience, consumers… what does it mean for the workforce?
Here are some clarifications, although it should be noted that much
of the language in this space is contested:
1. Lived experience is increasingly used as a term which embraces
both consumer and/or carer experiences.
2. Lived experience of consumers generally refers to:
a. mental health problems/madness
b. mental health service system use/consumers/survivors/
ex-patients
c. recovery (personally defined)
d. social exclusion, disenfranchisement, trauma and more.
3. Peer work is an emerging discipline and practice rather than a
specific type of role. Some literature refers to peer workers as
being distinct from professional roles. This is generally an unhelpful
distinction. It is more helpful to speak about ‘peer’ and
‘non-peer’ professionals.
4. For consumers, peer work is closely tied to the consumer human
rights movement, and to the growing discipline of madness studies.
Consumers may be peer workers for other consumers, while
carers may be peer workers for other carers. To be a peer worker,
a person generally requires:
a. lived experience as outlined above
b. training or experience in the discipline of peer work
c. willingness to disclose and to intentionally and purposefully
use their own lived experience in the role.
5. The consumer workforce is utilised in a wide range of roles
and responsibilities, as shown in table 1, and this scope is
expanding to include every level and aspect of the mental
health service system.
It is the job of the consumer workforce to continue to develop its own
models of practice, research base and professional codes. However
it is the responsibility of the sector as a whole to be enabling of these
processes, and to recognise and respond to breaking down the
inherent systemic barriers faced by this growing, valuable, but still
often disadvantaged group.