Incorporating psycho‐educational family and carers work into routine clinical practice

Abstract

There is growing evidence of the benefits of family and carers interventions using a psycho-educational model for carers of people with psychosis. In order to get this work into clinical practice, a network of interrelated services for carers and families of people with psychoses has been established in Reading, Berkshire. This paper reports the experience of the authors in establishing these services using a series of practice development initiatives including training for staff, education programmes, integration projects and collaboration across organizations. This work illustrates change processes through which evidence-based practice has been incorporated into routine clinical care and in which research-based assessment and evaluation tools have being used in routine clinical practice to measure outcomes.

An evaluation of education and implementation of psychosocial interventions within one UK mental healthcare trust

“…Psychosocial interventions trainees evaluated positively the Trust's PSI practice development strategy on the whole. Of the various support measures, the allocation of a PSI‐trained clinical supervisor to facilitate safe and effective skills development throughout the training was found to be most helpful (Sin et al . 2003).…”

“…The Trust has adopted a strategic approach to address implementation barriers and ensure integration of PSI into routine clinical practice. This includes synchronizing education, training and practice development initiatives in order to develop a workforce fit for purpose (Sin et al. 2003, Gamble et al.…”

The Thorn Course: rhetoric and reality

“…If the Thorn training was not the main discussion focus of the article they were discarded (e.g. Sin et al . 2003, Kelly & Newstead 2004, Stevens & Sin 2005), as all are descriptive accounts of implementing psychosocial interventions (PSI) initiatives in practice (McCann & Bowers 2005), because the focus of the study is upon training in cognitive behavioural interventions on acute psychiatric inpatient wards and not the Thorn programme and Mairs & Bradshaw (2005), because it is an international study broader than the Thorn Course.…”

Developing services for the carers of young adults with early‐onset psychosis – listening to their experiences and needs

“…A family work service for individuals with psychosis is well‐established in Berkshire, UK and has been described in Sin et al. (2003) and Reynolds (2004).…”

“…1992). These groups have generally included 10 carers and have run for 10–15 sessions over a 6‐ to 9‐month period and incorporate education about psychosis, work on communication skills, problem‐solving techniques, relapse prevention work, and ‘care for the carers’ (see Sin et al . 2003 for more details).…”