The Leeds Recovery College – I need your help

Leeds is developing a “Recovery College”. However, the man behind it, Simon Burton, needs help to develop the courses it will be running. In his second blog for the Trust, Simon talks about how other areas have co-produced their recovery college courses with both people who work in mental health or who have lived experience of it. If that sounds like you, could you help Simon?

Simon BurtonHello, my name is Simon. You may have heard that I’m setting up the Leeds Recovery College, working with lots of different people and organisations from across the city to develop courses focused on emotional, physical and mental health.

I started this project in January 2019 and since then we’ve made some great progress and run a few pilot courses which have gone down well.

However, this blog is more a plea for help than a progress update as this is something I cannot do alone. I’m looking for people who have professional expertise or personal experience of mental health and recovery. If that’s you, and you think you could help design and deliver a course with us, I’d love to hear from you.

I expect your first question might be why should I get involved? So I’m hoping to make the case for why getting involved in developing a recovery college can have many benefits, for you and for wider society.

What makes a recovery college a bit different?

We believe that mental health is important to us all and that we can all play a part in improving our own mental health and that of others. This is reflected in how we develop our courses. We bring two types of experience together.

We encourage people who have faced mental health challenges to work with professionals in mental health care, education and community organisations to co-design and co-deliver the courses we run.
Bringing together lived experience and professional knowledge helps us ensure that our courses are packed full of useful and relevant information which we hope will help people learn more about mental health, work out what keeps them well and find ways to live better.

This video shows how they’ve done it at the Camden and Islington Recovery College and its well worth a look:

What’s happening in Leeds?

There’s a lot going on behind the scenes as we prepare to launch our full prospectus from September 2019.

We’ve been working on things like making sure we’re representative of Leeds and the college is easy for people to attend – this means that people will enroll as a student, not as a service user, patient or carer etc. Staff, volunteers and those not in mental health services will be equally encouraged to enroll at the college and book on a course too.

Our courses will run across the city, working with partner organisations and community hubs including places like Lovell Park, Stocks Hill and the Vale Circles.

To help our learning and making sure we’ve got the details right, we are currently delivering some pilot courses and have now started to recruit people who are interested in sharing their experience and running a course with us.

This video from the South London and Maudsley Recovery College explains a little more about co-production and developing a recovery college course:

What courses will we run?

Our courses aren’t therapy, but we hope they will help people learn more about their mental health, work out what keeps them well, and find ways to live better. This can include:

  • Improving confidence and self-esteem
  • Learning practical tips to help manage difficult feelings and life challenges
  • Reducing loneliness and connecting with others
  • Increasing our understanding of mental health and emotional resilience
  • Reflecting on where we’re at and what important to us
  • Developing skills to move forward in life, health and work

Courses will vary in length, from two hour individual workshops to longer courses which may run over a series of weeks.

I need your help

Now, back to what I said at the start. I need your help!

If you have professional expertise or personal experience of mental health and recovery and think you could help design and deliver a course with us to run in our September prospectus – please get in touch.

Co-producing a recovery college course may take less time than you think. We’re here to help link professional and lived experience facilitators together and can help with course design and planning. If this is a stand-alone workshop, course planning could be done in as little as half a day.

If you’re interested and would like to find out more, we’re running a series of “connecting up” events over the summer where people can get involved or simply find out more. Click the links to book on the events:

Connecting up: Public Health Resource Centre (Thursday 18th April)

Connecting up: Vision Board Workshop, The Arch Café (Thursday 25th April)

Connecting up: The Arch Café (Friday 24th May)

Connecting up: Prospectus Photo Shoot, Stocks Hill Hub (Thursday 30th May)

Connecting up: Prospectus Photo Shoot, The Arch Café (Thursday 30th May)

Contact me

I’d love to hear from you if you think you can help me. You can reach me on:
Tel 07970 905102
Email: simon.burton1@nhs.net
You can also find me on twitter @SimonRecoveryC1