How we developed the Influence and Participation Toolkit
For many years, Mind used a resource similar to this (called the engagement toolkit) for staff to use when working with people with lived experience.
We decided to review and update the previous version, to:
- Be a new and improved toolkit for national and local Minds
- Be available for anyone outside of Mind who wants to involve people with lived experience of mental health problems in their work
- Include some practical tools for users to draw on
The process
Mind wanted to understand what would be useful and important in the new toolkit, and a range of methods were used to gather feedback and inform its development.
Oz Osbourne and Louise Palmer were commissioned to manage the review process and write the new toolkit. This involved:
- Forming a steering group, which met regularly during the process
- Consulting with local and national Mind staff through a series of regional workshops
- Gathering input and feedback from other Mind staff via a questionnaire
- Conducting and filming interviews with staff and service users
- Working with staff and other people to collate case studies, to highlight good practice
- Developing and designing tools for people using the toolkit to draw on
We reviewed the toolkit in 2020, adding new resources and tools and making sure the resource reflects current concerns and working practices.
The toolkit is a living and growing document. We add new content and review it to make sure it's up to date.
Andrew's experience
In this video, Andrew talks about his participation in developing the toolkit.
"For Mind to turn round recognise there is an issue and give us, the people the opportunity to get our voices heard gave me some real confidence there was going to be some positive change."
The authors
The toolkit was researched and written by Oz Osborne and Louise Palmer. Between them, they have nearly 30 years of knowledge in the field of mental health, community development and engaging with people with lived experiences.
Louise Palmer
Louise has worked in mental health over the last 15 years and is passionate about using people's personal experiences to effect change. She also has her own lived experience of mental health problems.
Her work has focused on providing opportunities for people to participate in a range of projects. These include:
- Developing a user-led 'Well-being' project for the Stuart Low Trust
- Supporting Time to Change's social leadership team to challenge stigma and discrimination
- Being an Influence and Participation coach supporting a number of teams at Mind.
Louise has also trained and mentored people to speak with more confidence in public, to help influence better practice through the power of personal stories.
Oz Ozborne
Oz worked with people and communities as he had a passion for difference to be appreciated and celebrated. Sadly Oz passed away in August 2018, after a very short and sudden illness. He was a truly inspirational campaigner, a creative thinker and tirelessly challenged inequalities in every way.
He began his work in mental health with Great Yarmouth and Waveney Mind, where he managed a creative project for young people in 2002. Oz worked throughout the UK with the Time to Change campaign, The Human Library movement and, in 2013, created a social enterprise, The Outsiders, to develop ideas that provide a platform for transformative dialogue.
In 2015 The Outsiders developed a new campaign to focus on men's mental health called 12th Man, which continues to operate throughout the East of England. Oz was incredibly proud to be involved in developing this; one of his greatest passions was to support men to talk more openly about mental health.
We are incredibly lucky to have been able to work with Oz. His memory lives on amongst the many people whose lives were so positively touched, encouraged and influenced by his work in mental health.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
