Practice Development in Mental Health
Listening to practitioners, and placing the resources where they can make a real impact.
'Practice Development' in Mental Health
- The Need
- The Idea
- The Practicalitites
The Idea
‘Practice Development’ is an outcome-driven process supporting the implementation of recognised good practice into the routine daily functioning of individual practitioners and teams. Its overall aim is the improved quality of care and support offered to service users. Specific goals include:
- Identifying and translating the ideas from ‘evidence-based practice’ (messages through training programmes) into the realities of ‘practice-based evidence’ (realities of routine clinical practice).
- Recognising and supporting elements of existing good practice.
- Raising individual and collective standards of practice, through managing, modelling and supporting the implementation of changes in practice.
- Examining individual and collective attitudes underpinning the philosophy of care, specifically the implementation of real service user involvement.
- Promoting an understanding of the links between, and co-ordination of, the different components of comprehensive mental health services.
Training is an essential component for supporting effective contemporary mental health practice, but its focus on dissemination of messages only partly achieves the aim of changing practice. Even the very well evaluated training workshops offer no clear guide as to how the ideas, thoughts and discussions will be subsequently incorporated into changes in practice beyond the workshop setting. Informing service managers of the ideas, and reviewing practice in the workshop setting, are further methods of promoting good practice, to a limited degree; but offer no further evidence of how the people attending the event are likely to bring about real change. Portfolios of evidence to support developments in individual practice provide a better snapshot, but are often only a picture of one person’s chosen examples of what they wish to divulge; rarely offering a guide to the practice across a team.
It is the philosophy of ‘Practice Based Evidence’ that truly effective changes to clinical practice, in line with the messages from the research, can only be achieved through the sharper focus offered by a presence alongside practitioners and teams in their daily routines. This requires much the same approach as would be expected in the work with individual service users:
- Engaging a trusting relationship with practitioners and teams.
- Establishing a baseline of current knowledge, skills and attitudes.
- Reflecting existing strengths and good practice.
- Suggesting, modelling and supporting ideas for change.
- Monitoring and measuring changes.