Speaker: Jacqueline Sin PhD, FEANS, FHEA, RNT, RMN, Professor of Mental Health Nursing at City, University of London 

Title: Co-producing Digital Mental Health Interventions: Trials, Tribulations & Aspirations

Jacqueline Sin reflects on her clinical and research journey through the changing landscape of mental health care: from pharmacological to psychosocial treatment and more recently to digital interventions. Innovative digital interventions are increasingly being co-produced with experiential experts so that they best meet the needs of end-users. Co-production is a powerful way to mobilise social capital and multi-disciplinary knowledge found within individuals and communities. This way of working challenges conventional research methods and pushes the boundaries of traditional power dynamics and defined roles. Co-producing and trialling of digital interventions including ESibling and COPe-support (www.cope-support.org) brought challenges whilst being both thought provoking and a rich source of inspiration. With co-production the quest for best evidence-based care continues.

Speaker: Steve Gillard PhD, Professor of Mental Health Research, City, University of London

Title: Doing Research in Liminal Spaces: Peer Support in Mental Health Services

Increasingly introduced into mental health services internationally, peer support occupies a space in between. Peer workers bring experiential ways of knowing to clinical care and can act as a bridge, both to the clinical team and to community, for people whose lives have been fractured by mental distress. But research in liminal spaces invites challenge and critique, and questions of who does research and how continue to drive debates as the evidence base attempts to catch up with, and better inform policy and practice. This presentation will explore that space, charting a journey from early descriptive studies and theoretical work to complex intervention development and randomised controlled trial, before considering what next for peer support in mental health services.