Exploring experience of MDO's in a vocational rehabilitation project
Research type
Research Study
Full title
An exploratory study to investigate the experience of mentally disordered offenders working in a vocational rehabilitation programme
IRAS ID
166891
Contact name
Kathryn Ayles
Contact email
Duration of Study in the UK
0 years, 11 months, 31 days
Research summary
This study will focus on the experience of mentally disordered offenders who are in-patients within a medium secure mental health service. It will address the experience of working within a café, provided as part of the vocational pathway.
The aim is to develop a greater understanding of the experience of service users who currently work in the café.
The primary objectives will be to:
a) Gain service users perspectives on social inclusion / engagement with co-workers and
b) To investigate the relationship between service users and the professionals who care for them in the context of the specific work environment.The vocational opportunities have been the subject of local service evaluation, which suggest that they are valued by the service users (service evaluation of voluntary work roles and evaluation of the vocational skills project in the café, unpublished). The results provided useful information on the skills service users felt they had gained through working in the cafe, and any benefits to their recovery, however there were further questions that it would be useful to answer. More specifically the evaluation of the café concluded that patients who had volunteered developed numerous skills and felt less like a service user in this role. (Quinn and Ayles unpublished). It is hoped that this study will enable this aspect to be explored further and to understand the impact that this might have on recovery, if any. Whilst the initial results demonstrate some level of success, this study will gain an in-depth understanding of the experience of working in the café, particularly in relation to social inclusion.
The study will focus on the factors identified by the participants as important to them and the meanings that they attach to their experiences. The data will be collected using participant observation with semi-structured interviews.REC name
South Central - Berkshire Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
15/SC/0290
Date of REC Opinion
28 May 2015
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion