Experience with introducing peer trainers into mental health education

Peer trainers are experts with a lived mental illness experience who take on the role of trainers to present the latest mental health care trends and theories, and introduce recovery elements into the educational process. If you are interested in this topic, please look at the article which introduce experience with destigmatising effect of this type of teaching: what has proven to be crucial in this regard was, on the one hand, the experience of former patients, and on the other hand, a counterweight to the often one-sided information prevalent in professional literature on mental health available in the Czech Republic. https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/G38QGDTPP4XUPYSZUJC2/full?target=10.1080/02615479.2021.1998425

The teaching reinforced the students’ ability to work in a multidisciplinary team together with a peer support worker and also undermined any prejudice they may have had towards people with mental health issues.

If you are interested more, you may contact:

PhDr. Vlasta Řezníková, Ph.D., www.vspj.cz

The data on which the article is based were gathered over a period of three years from focus groups involving 2nd year students of the bachelor’s degree programme of ‘Clinical Social Worker’. The results obtained clearly show the destigmatising effect of this type of teaching: what has proven to be crucial in this regard was, on the one hand, the experience of former patients, and on the other hand, a counterweight to the often-one-sided information prevalent in professional literature on mental health available in the Czech Republic. The teaching reinforced the students’ ability to work in a multidisciplinary team together with a peer support worker and also undermined any prejudice they may have had towards people with mental health problems.

KEYWORDS: Expert by experience peer trainers destigmatisation participatory learning mental health problems focus groups recovery