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Objective: The Bridging the Gap Between Physical and Mental Illness in Community Pharmacy ("PharMIbridge") randomised controlled trial (RCT) aims to test the effectiveness of a pharmacist-led support service in improving medication adherence, and the physical and mental health of people living with severe and persistent mental illness compared to a standard medication review service. Method: Using the six-step intervention mapping (IM) framework, this paper describes the development and content of the "PharMIbridge" pharmacist training programme, an integral part of the RCT implementation, and continuous adaptations made to the process to keep pace with the evolving severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) pandemic in Australia. A Training Working Group comprising health educators, practitioners, mental health consumers and researchers, refined the programme objectives and assisted with developing content and troubleshooting issues related to training delivery for pharmacists randomised to the RCT intervention arm. Results: A 2-day training programme was developed, which included Mental Health First Aid, simulated patient role-plays, and four pre-recorded modules using lectures, demonstration case vignettes, role-play activities and discussion. The programme, co-facilitated by project team members and mentors (pharmacist and consumer educators), aims to enhance pharmacists' mental health literacy, skills and confidence and empower them to engage with this vulnerable population using a strengths-based approach. Pre- and post-training questionnaires and interviews will be used to evaluate the impact of the "PharMIbridge" training programme. Conclusion: The systematic stepwise method provided by the IM framework highlights the solution-focused approach adopted by the project team and characteristics including adaptability and resilience which enabled training development and implementation across four Australian regions during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic.

Background: Medical interventions have a place in crisis support; however, narrow biomedical and risk‐driven responses negatively impact people seeking crisis care. With increasing shifts towards involving people with lived experience (service users) in designing services, foregrounding people's desired responses is critical. Accordingly, the aim of the study was to explore the wished‐for crisis responses from the perspective of people who have experienced crisis and accessed crisis care. Method: Using a hermeneutical phenomenological approach, in‐depth interviews were conducted to determine the desired crisis responses of 31 people who self‐reported experiencing mental health crises and accessed crisis services at ED, phone lines and/or crisis alternatives. Results: The findings identified wished‐for responses that gave a felt and embodied sense of their own safety influenced by a human‐to‐human response, emotional holding, a place of safety and choice within holistic care. For such responses to be possible, participants identified organising principles, including recognising crisis as meaningful and part of our shared human experience, understanding risk as fluid and a whole‐of‐community responsibility for responding to crises. Conclusion: This paper proposes how insights from people who have experienced crises can be translated into more beneficial crisis care. Patient or Consumer Contribution: Most authors are in identified lived experience roles. The first author engaged with participants during the recruitment and interviews and was explicit regarding their lived experience. Service users were involved as advisors, providing input throughout the study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past three decades, "lived experience" designated roles in mental health services in Australia have increased. However, the lived experience of staff in roles not designated in this way is often hidden or unacknowledged. This qualitative study included 33 participants employed in a range of roles at two Victorian mental health services, including 10 social workers. Interviews explored staff perspectives regarding the sharing of lived experience by staff with colleagues and supervisors. Concept analysis identified conflicting ways of thinking about lived experience, which influenced when and how staff shared and how they responded to sharing by other staff. These findings suggest the need to explicitly address the purpose and value of sharing lived experience in the mental health workplace, to better support staff and service users. Recommendations for social workers and their colleagues, working at all levels of the mental health system, are provided. IMPLICATIONS The perspectives and experiences of mental health service staff suggest room for improvement in the valuing and inclusion of staff with lived experience, which may have benefits for service-user experiences of support. Promoting the value of sharing lived experience to reflective-practice and service reform is consistent with core social work values and, thus, the responsibility of all social workers, supervisors, and educators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The mental health Lived Experience workforce (also referred to as peer workforce) is growing rapidly internationally and within Australia. Peer workers are increasingly employed within multi‐ and inter‐disciplinary teams, often directly supervised by mental health professionals such as nurses. Professional supervision has been identified as fundamental for implementing a sustainable peer workforce, but significant gaps in the literature remain, in particular, an understanding of appropriate supervision practices. This scoping review synthesized academic and grey literature on Lived Experience supervision in Australia, exploring current thoughts on best practices. Four electronic databases were searched, and grey literature was located via Google Advanced searches, contacting Lived Experience experts and conducting web‐based desktop searches of key mental health organization websites. Thematic analysis identified and described key characteristics in relation to how supervision is conceptualized and operationalized. Eight peer‐reviewed and 46 grey literature documents describing supervision and supervisory practices were analysed. Of these studies, 26 were Lived Experience‐led. Analysis revealed four key themes: (i) defining peer supervision, (ii) variability in understanding the purpose of supervision, (iii) approaches to supervision and the need for choice and flexibility, and (iv) qualities and skills of the supervisor. Additionally, the establishment of a national professional organization for peer workers was highlighted to protect the authenticity of Lived Experience roles and develop an effective workforce. Clearly, a sustainable Lived Experience workforce cannot develop in isolation, and mental health nurses, as important allies in mental healthcare, need to work alongside, plan and advocate for appropriate supervision practices for this emerging workforce. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Peer workers are widely employed across the mental health sector in Australia, and these positions increasingly include people with experience as a service user (consumer peer workers) and people with experience as a family member (caregiver peer workers). The authors explored similarities and differences between the consumer and caregiver peer workforces and considered positions designed to combine consumer and caregiver perspectives. A mixed-methods design was used to analyze data from a nationwide Australian survey (N=882), including responses from peer staff with consumer and caregiver perspectives (N=558), and from mental health staff not designated as peer workers (N=324). Most participants viewed the two perspectives as different in terms of values or goals (51%) and work practices (59%), with fewer stating that the two workforces had similar goals or values (45%) and work practices (37%). Qualitative findings provided insight into these differences and similarities, identifying differences in perspectives, priorities, and work practices but highlighting similarities in values between the two workforces. Qualitative data also revealed potential risks of employing peer workers in roles designed to use both kinds of experience for direct support roles but indicated potential for the combined perspective in other contexts. Both qualitative and quantitative data indicated that participants with consumer experience perceived greater differences between the role types than those with caregiver experience only. The findings indicate similarities and differences between staff with consumer or caregiver perspectives and highlight the need for greater role clarity and the potential for conflict in positions where peer workers combine both perspectives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: People living with severe and persistent mental illness experience poorer physical health, often due to medication and preventable lifestyle factors, and exacerbated by barriers to accessing healthcare services. Pharmacists are well-positioned to improve the physical and mental health of this population. However, little is known about pharmacists' current practices when providing services to this population nor the impact of pharmacist-led interventions on consumer health outcomes. We undertook a systematic review to identify, describe and assess the effectiveness of pharmacist-led interventions for supporting people living with severe and persistent mental illness and the impact on consumer outcomes. Methods: MEDLINE, Embase, PsycINFO, CINAHL, Web of Science, Scopus, Cochrane Library, International Pharmaceutical Abstracts and ProQuest Dissertations and Theses were searched between January 1990 and April 2020. Full-text studies exploring pharmacist-led interventions in any setting for people living with severe and persistent mental illness were included. A risk of bias assessment was conducted. Results: A total of 37 studies were included. More than half of the pharmacist interventions were multifaceted. The most common components of pharmacist-led interventions included education and/or patient counselling, providing recommendations to healthcare professionals and conducting medication reviews. Multifaceted interventions demonstrated improvements in clinical outcomes, whereas single interventions focused mostly on consumer-reported outcomes. The methodological quality of included studies was moderate-to-high risk of bias and there was considerable heterogeneity in the study design, interventions described, and outcomes reported. Conclusion: There is evidence that pharmacist-led interventions improve consumer-reported and clinical outcomes for people living with severe and persistent mental illness. Pharmacists are capable and have a role in supporting people living with severe and persistent mental illness, either individually or as interprofessional collaborators with other healthcare professionals. Future research should attempt to better understand which particular intervention components have the greatest impact and also evaluate the implementation and long-term sustainability of such interventions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: This study explored the benefits and limitations of employing peer support workers, who utilise their own lived experience of mental distress and recovery, to support people experiencing mental distress who are attending the ED. Methods: This co‐produced qualitative study utilised four phases: (i) assemble a collaborative multi‐disciplinary research team and Expert Panel, of which at least half identified as having lived experience; (ii) a site visit to an ED; (iii) focus groups with consumers, support persons and ED staff; and (iv) a learning workshop for peer workers. Results: Focus groups were run for consumers (n = 7), support persons (n = 5) and ED staff (n = 7). Eleven consumer peer workers participated in the learning workshop. Four themes were identified and triangulated: the individual in distress, peer support work, a 'Peers in EDs' service and the ED context. Overall, findings suggest that peer support workers contribute important skills including listening, de‐escalation, relationship‐building and empathy. Conclusions: This study identified that peer support workers would bring important skills to an ED (e.g. empathetic support, de‐escalation). However, significant workforce and organisational support would be required. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: While there have been increased calls for mental health consumers to be involved in mental health services research, there is limited research exploring the research interests of this group. Aims: To compare the interests in different research topics of a peer workforce (people who are employed to use their lived experience of mental illness and recovery to support others) with those of Allied Health Professionals in a Hospital and Health Service. Method: A survey asking participants to rate their interest in researching various topics was distributed to the peer and allied health workforce. Differences between the two groups were tested with the Kruskal–Wallis test for independent samples. Results: The peer workforce consistently rated their interest in all questions as greater than the Allied Health Workforce with five of the seven questions showing statistically significant differences. The median ratings of interest for four of the seven topics were high for both the peer and allied health. These were primarily items on how to help. The peer workforce also expressed a greater interest in being involved in the research. Conclusions: Our study emphasises the importance of creating opportunities for including the peer workforce in all aspects of the research process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Acute mental health inpatient units are complex environments where tensions between clinical and personal recovery can be amplified. The focus for mental health staff is often centred on providing clinical care, whereas from the patient perspective, the admission can represent a profound existential crisis. There are very few user‐led accounts of their experiences of psychiatric inpatient unit. This project was developed in the traditions of Analytic Auto‐Ethnography, a research methodology which provides a systematic process to reflect on our own experience while still producing trustworthy findings. Through this process, a collective narrative and critical reflection of a group of over 20 individuals with experiences of either providing or receiving care in an acute psychiatric inpatient unit was developed. The narrative developed shows that for some the hospital admission was a time of healing; for others, the inpatient unit represented an alien and unsafe environment, which accentuated the strangeness of the experiences of mental ill health. Common themes among the group were that of an overarching need to make sense of what happened leading up to the admissions and to come to terms with the potential impact of the illness on identity and future. This journey can be best described as a process of healing and moving towards ‘wholeness’. Safety, connection, autonomy and control were identified as factors which either facilitated or hindered the process of successfully integrating the various experiences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]