Re-imagining professionalism: towards co-production

这一系列研讨会的目的是就如何鼓励和发展心理健康领域的联合制作提出想法。联合制作涉及精神健康服务用户能够与专业人员一起作为平等的合作伙伴对自己的治疗和护理做出决定。这一申请是及时的，因为目前有一个强有力的政策重点，鼓励服务使用者和照顾者更多地参与决定他们所接受的护理。人们普遍认识到，精神卫生保健需要与服务用户合作的新方式(一种新的专业方法)。这个系列研讨会是由一个研究小组联合开发的，研究小组包括服务使用者、照顾者、慈善/志愿组织以及公共和政府组织的工作人员。研究团队中的学者来自不同的学科背景：精神健康护理、哲学、政治学、精神病学、社会工作和社会学。该系列研讨会将把来自不同利益攸关方群体的人们聚集在一起，以便根据共同制作的原则，就心理健康方面的新工作方式提出想法。这将涉及考虑不同组织的当前做法、政策和方法，以及心理健康方面的教育和培训。至关重要的是，精神健康服务使用者及其家庭照顾者将充分参与这一进程。我们用了一种新的方式来使用‘专业’这个词。专业人士(对我们来说)可以属于任何职业类别。在我们看来，让一个人变得专业的是他们的责任感，而不是他们的职业地位。重要的是，我们认为，在这种情况下，服务使用者和家庭照顾者应该被视为专业人士，因为他们是“经验专家”。我们的演讲者和参与者包括一些能够塑造实践、教育和政策的人。尽管如此，我们认为，重要的是，所有参与者都享有平等地位。我们的想法是，在不同群体之间分享想法将使我们能够弄清楚精神健康领域的专业性如何建立在联合制作的基础上。在医疗保健领域，尊重不同人的价值观正变得越来越重要。这被称为基于价值观的实践(VBP)。但问题是，越南船民忽视了权力问题--这是一个现实，一些人的价值观和观点比其他人的更有力量和影响力。这就是为什么这个系列研讨会将鼓励人们考虑联合制作的一些关键思想，这与民主专业主义(DP)有关。DP基于这样一种理念，即在塑造专业实践和价值观时，应将“门外汉”的声音视为高度相关，这一点很重要。DP的另一项原则是，应根据专业人员在多大程度上支持他们的工作伙伴的参与和支持，如服务用户，对他们进行评估。换句话说，专业精神应该包括与他人分享权力，而不是对他们行使权力。我们相信，我们的系列研讨会将有助于发展适应21世纪的专业实践和价值观。每个研讨会都将聚焦于一个特定的主题：前两个研讨会的背景是联合制作和民主专业精神，以及人们对联合制作的亲身体验。接下来的研讨会将考虑如何改变精神健康的实践、政策和教育，以发展一种以联合制作为基础的新形式的专业精神。我们将在我们的网站上提供研讨会系列的录像带，我们将设立一个博客来继续研讨会中的讨论和对话。参加研讨会的所有团体都将为今后的实践和研究活动作出贡献。

The aim of this seminar series is to develop ideas on how to encourage and develop co-production in mental health. Co-production involves mental health service users being able to make decisions about their own treatment and care as equal partners alongside professionals. This application is timely because there is currently a strong policy emphasis encouraging the greater involvement of service users and carers in making decisions about the care they receive. It is widely recognised that new ways of working with service users (a new approach to professionalism) are needed in mental health care. This seminar series was developed jointly by a research team which includes service users, carers, and people working in charitable/voluntary organisations, and in public and governmental organisations. Academics in the research team are from diverse disciplinary backgrounds: mental health nursing, philosophy, political science, psychiatry, social work and sociology. The seminar series will bring people together from different stakeholder groups in order to develop ideas about new ways of working in mental health which are based on the principle of co-production. This will involve considering current practices, policies, approaches in different organisations, as well as education and training in mental health. Crucially, mental health service users and their family carers will fully participate in this process. We use the term 'professional' in a new way. A professional can (for us) belong to any occupational group. What makes someone professional is, in our view, their sense of commitment - not their occupational status. Importantly, we believe that service users and family carers should be considered professionals in this context because they are 'experts in experience'. Our speakers and participants include some people who are in positions where they can shape practice, education and policy. We believe though that it is important that all the participants have equal status. The idea is that sharing ideas across groups will be enable us to work out how professionalism in mental health can be based on co-production. In healthcare a growing importance is being placed on respecting different people's values. This is known as Values Based Practice (VBP). But the problem is that VBP overlooks problems of power - that is the reality that some people's values and perspectives are more powerful and influential than other people's. This is why this seminar series will encourage people to think about co-production by considering some of the key ideas associated with 'democratic professionalism' (DP). DP is based on the idea that it is important that the voices of 'lay' people, particularly marginalised people, should be regarded as highly relevant when it comes to shaping professional practice and values. Another principle of DP is that professionals should be assessed according to the extent to which they support the involvement and enablement of people they work with, such as service users. In other words, professionalism should involve sharing power with others, not exercising power over them. We believe that our seminar series will contribute to the development of professional practice and values which are suited to the 21st century. Each seminar will focus on a particular topic: the first two seminars set the scene with a focus on co-production and democratic professionalism and on people's lived experience of co-production. The seminars which follow consider how changes to practice, policy and education in mental health could be implemented to develop a new form of professionalism based on co-production.We will make the video-recordings of the seminar series available on our website and we will have a blog to continue the discussions and conversations which take place in the seminars. All the groups represented at the seminars will contribute to future practical and research initiatives.