Young People’s Experiences of Peer Support Workers in CAMHS
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Young People’s Experiences of Engaging with Peer Support Workers in Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS)
IRAS ID
281826
Contact name
Sarah Wilde
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University of Lincoln
Duration of Study in the UK
0 years, 6 months, 6 days
Research summary
Summary of Research
The study will aim to explore young people’s experiences of engaging with Peer Support Workers (PSWs) in Child and Adolescent Mental Health services (CAMHS) in order to develop an understanding of the relational processes that take place, the ways in which working with PSWs impact young people's understanding of themselves, and the ways in which these processes link with existing psychological theory and literature.
The methodology used will be 15 semi-structured interviews. Interviews will be audio recorded for later transcription.
The participants will be up to 15 young people who have engaged with PSWs within National Health Service CAMHS provisions will be recruited to take part in the study.
Young people will be eligible participate in the study if they are aged 12 and 18 years, and they have accessed input from a PSW on at least four occasions within the last 12 months.
Participation will involve attending a one-off interview lasting approximately 30–60 minutes.
A Grounded Theory qualitative analysis will be used to develop a substantive theory to account for the processes of peer support work within CAMHS, and the impact on young people.
The total expected duration of this study is one year from April 2020. The study will be submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the Trent Doctorate in Clinical Psychology in February 2021.
Summary of Results
Lay Summary
Why we created this study:
Over recent years many NHS Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) teams in the UK have begun employing peer support workers as part of their offer. This is based on the idea that people with life experience of managing mental health difficulties and getting help from CAMHS may have something valuable to offer to young people going through similar difficulties. This seems to make sense, but so far there hasn't been much research exploring the ways that help from peer support workers impacts young people at CAMHS.
We thought that it was important to learn about this, and that it was also important to ask young people directly to give them a voice, as they are the ones that this intervention is supposed to help. Our hope was that that learning more about peer support in CAMHS would help services to continue to improve, and would also help build a foundation for further research.What we did:
We interviewed nine young people about their experiences of engaging with a peer support worker in CAMHS. We recorded the interviews, wrote down what was said, and then analysed the information using a method called grounded theory. The goal of this method is to create a theory that explains how peer support works in CAMHS.
To protect your information, the recordings were deleted and all names and identifiable details on the transcripts were changed.What we found:
We built a theory of CAMHS peer support work which has two broad themes. The first theme is called Features of Peer Support Work. This theme describes the ways that the peer support worker life circumstances (such as age), approach (such as using text messages or meeting in informal settings), self-disclosure (sharing information about their own life), and experience informed practice (giving guidance based on experience); combined to create the second theme.
The second theme is called Consequences of Peer Support Work. This theme describes how young people recognised their peer support worker as being part of their in-group (someone who is like them). This seemed to assist with the deepening of the working relationship, and in turn helped young people to slowly change the ways in which they viewed themselves and their prospects in recovery. This appeared to help the young people taking part to feel more open to the possibility of recovery, and more open to making helpful changes.REC name
East Midlands - Nottingham 1 Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
21/EM/0007
Date of REC Opinion
5 Mar 2021
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion