Laura Lea, Anne Cooke and Louise Goodbody

Dangerous Dialogue – Learning from conversations about personal experience

Three recent projects have led us to think and talk as a course team about how trainees can learn from conversations about personal experience:

1. The Placement Advising Scheme

Each first year trainee on placement in one of our local trusts is paired with someone who has experience either as a service user or carer. Trainee and advisor meet together each month to discuss issues related to service delivery. The scheme has been very popular with both advisors and trainees. For example, one member described it as ‘quality time to explore, learn and grow for both the trainee and advisor’. We are hoping to expand the scheme into other local trusts in this coming year.

Principles of the scheme include:

 Mutuality - learning from shared experiences as well as differences, being free to negotiate and explore the areas of learning.

 Inclusion - developing a collaborative approach to learning

 Community orientation - exploring the context within which people receive and use services

Trainees say that they particularly value:

 Absence of formalised assessment - consistent feedback from trainees indicates that this is one of the most valued aspects of the scheme, in that assessment inhibits exploration.

 Absence of a set structure – venue and agenda are negotiated between the two people, and advisors as well as trainees can ask questions.

Salomons Centre Ltd. Registered Office: David Salomons Estate, University Solicitor’s Office Broomhill Road, Southborough, Tunbridge Wells, Kent, TN3 OTG Canterbury Christ Church University, Tel +44 (0) 1892 515152 Fax +44 (0) 1892 539102 North Holmes Road, Canterbury, Kent CT1 1QU www.salomons.org.uk Registered in England, Company No: 3143393

Professor Michael Wright, Vice Chancellor and Principal  Opportunities to learn through negotiating uncertain roles for which there are few ‘scripts’.  `The process is the learning’

2. The Personal Experience in Training and Practice (PETP) Group

Helen Wood, (trainee 2008-2011) has worked with Laura Lea and Sue Holttum (members of the staff team) to facilitate the exploration of personal experience in training and practice. The group originated from a seminar in 2010 on the position of trainees’ personal experiences in professional practice and training, which was attended by nine staff and seventeen trainees. Four trainees shared their thoughts on this topic with the group, drawing on personal experiences of caring, parenting and physical disability.

Themes that emerged during the subsequent discussion included:

 The unacknowledged challenges of managing a disability (and other issues), including a feeling that the responsibility to manage this lies with the individual, as opposed to the wider group.

 Personal experiences that can be used/drawn on in training, and the barriers to sharing these.

 Expertise from experience: hesitancy about claiming expertise within a trainee group.

 Power and value versus stigma and discrimination, both within the profession and in wider society.

 The ‘burden’ of disclosure: decision-making around what to share, how much, when and with whom.

 Managing identity: the fear of difference in relation to the trainee group, and whether difference is OK.

 Striving to achieve: will disclosing experience compromise the ability to achieve?

 Practicalities: the practical challenges within training related to managing life experiences. What messages do the practical challenges convey about the value and place of these experiences? Salomons Centre Ltd. Registered Office: David Salomons Estate, University Solicitor’s Office Broomhill Road, Southborough, Tunbridge Wells, Kent, TN3 OTG Canterbury Christ Church University, Tel +44 (0) 1892 515152 Fax +44 (0) 1892 539102 North Holmes Road, Canterbury, Kent CT1 1QU www.salomons.org.uk Registered in England, Company No: 3143393

Professor Michael Wright, Vice Chancellor and Principal  How can clinical psychologists helpfully incorporate their life experience into their work with service users?

The meeting led to the formation of a smaller group which has met more regularly – an action research project which has offered trainees and staff the opportunity to explore this issue while researching the process as it happens.

3. Service User and Carer Involvement in Teaching

The amount of teaching involving service users and carers has steadily increased. Many sessions have elicited strong reactions. Mainly these have been positive, with trainees saying that the teaching will change the way they work in future. However, other trainees have reacted less positively to some sessions, and thinking about this has led the staff team to consider questions such as: Teaching by service users and carers has been elicited some strong reactions from trainees – mainly positive, but has also raised some questions, for example:

 What needs to be put in place in order for trainees to learn from critical voices rather than becoming defensive?

 Sometimes service users bring experiences that are relatively ‘raw’ – can trainees learn from unreflected-on experience, and if so how?

 How can trainees decide whether a question is OK to ask?  What if trainees have a different perspective to ‘experts by experience’, perhaps based on their own experience? What position does this put an expert-by- experience in? When is it OK to disagree?  What happens when the service users have things to say that the trainees/professionals don’t think are important – who determines what should be in the field of play?

Contact Details: [email protected], [email protected], [email protected]

Salomons Centre Ltd. Registered Office: David Salomons Estate, University Solicitor’s Office Broomhill Road, Southborough, Tunbridge Wells, Kent, TN3 OTG Canterbury Christ Church University, Tel +44 (0) 1892 515152 Fax +44 (0) 1892 539102 North Holmes Road, Canterbury, Kent CT1 1QU www.salomons.org.uk Registered in England, Company No: 3143393

Professor Michael Wright, Vice Chancellor and Principal