Conference Evaluation and Feedback “One year on” Recovery into Practice: A whole life – Whole Systems Approach National Botanic Gardens of Wales, Carmarthen 30th / 31st October 2014

“One year on” Recovery into Practice: A whole life – Whole Systems Approach National Botanic Gardens of Wales, Carmarthen 30th / 31st October 2014

Conference Evaluation by Arts4Wellbeing

Delegates Responses


Day 1.

What did you see that you liked?

  Inspiring approach from Finnish professional - clients not to be spoken about until present

  The beauty of being able to be in the moment

  People from around the world, independently sharing some issues and discovering similar solutions

  Good examples that we want to see in Wales

  That our ' little ' world is working with others 'Little worlds' to become a bigger inclusive world

  Courageous health board staff being open minded and resolute

  Professor Pat ---- a psychologist talking about critical thinking as positive warm and humane

  Reflecting on language roles and power

  Service users choosing their care coordinators and who they would like to work with

  To the individuality of people's recovery - not all fits one size

  Good, passionate people trying to do the right thing

  Care in the community


What did you hear that you liked?

  ENTHUSIASM !

  A lot of senior people in a room 6 days

  *challenging institutional norms *

  Hearing about things in people's recovery toolboxes.

  At one of my blackest moments I used to carry around 3 stones that I found on the beach in a calm moment. All my friends laughed and called me mad.

  How do we help the mental health system/ services to recover ?

  Hearing service users stories !

  1 1/2 hours a day for reflection

  That the medics are thinking beyond the medical model

  One knows he knows nothing

  CURIOSITY

  Gives the patient choices

  Stay close and you WILL understand

  Do not talk about the person when they are not there

  Similar struggles

  Systems v, people

  Moving away from just using the medical model

  Critical psychiatry - good that this group exists. Really useful critique

  That there is hope

  Recovery Journeys.

  Positivity.


What made you think?

  Everything has been brilliant, don't get me wrong, but people with mental illness cannot absorb all this information, you can go away with nothing

  Services need to make their own recovery

  People first, conditions second

  Where are the carers, family, friends? Missed them. Their voices are important too.

  Tolerance of uncertainty V service user need for certainty

  Illness - a message for others ?

  Value based system

  Rachel YP Hearing voices Fantastic to hear how her own journey has helped others

  Elements of recovery and cultural values ......

  How important recovery is, how much it gets overlooked. Individuals don't always get the help they need

  Penny spoke well

  Sitting with uncertainty - YES !

  Link between social services - "child at the centre" and " family group meeting " and putting the person with mental health issues at centre + family group meeting ( as per Finland.

  Speaking to the lady from Gaza, made me realise I am going to travel, even though I haven't even got a passport yet.

  Rachel's talk on hearing voices - we have a lot to learn

  Encouraging

  Penny Grippers presentation was heartbreaking, however glad to hear her support network is now great.

  Where do I go to find a more informed approach to coming off medication? How do you know if you can or can't? Always a taboo to discuss - if you come off you won't remain stable - but is that a learned experience ?

  I want to know about this new approach.

  Early interventions in Psychosis.

  Therapies delivered.

Harnessing creativity to improve lives and communities. Specialists in innovative, inspiring and engaging training.


  Excellent to see service users having an opinion on progress and being acknowledged and respected for their journeys of recovery

  Finland - inspiring and do- able and saving resources, why shouldn't services here take it on board ?

  People need to talk more

  I knew it was the right way - I won't change

  Involvement of service users and their views in the learning sets

  Complete sense of hope!

  Thriving not just surviving

  Shared stories

  We need more inspiring people like penny and Rachel to question us as professionals . It's about us all as individuals and not to group and label.

  INSPIRING !

  Solidarity and connection

  Meeting people who I haven't seen in a while

  Learning about Carmarthenshire learning sets

  Magic moment - seeing the magical mike xxxx

  Penny and Rachel - important

  I love the trees and the sea, the sea is very important to me - I put it in my presentation - it's very special

  My recovery song - James Arthur

  Really happy to hear the word recovery being used throughout the day. Need professionals to use this word.

  Excellent conference

  Penny and Rachel - absolutely fabulous

  We are all on the same wavelength and prepared to do something about it

  Inspired presentation from Finland. Collective approach

  Engagement in meeting

  Inclusion of family

  Complete change of practice

  Rachel very inspiring

  Personal stories

  Collaboration

  Inspiring and Refreshing.

  Musical interlude!

  Not treating people as fragile.

  " this was the best bit Creative, alive. Without arts4wellbeing it would have been turgid and academic! " diolch


New learning:

  The evident value of the learning set, I didn't know how they worked

  Meetings like this can inspire and re - invigor

  The integrated care of Finland was revolutionary

  More about filling the adolescent/ young adult gap

  Working towards change

  People from all over the world share the same ethos

  Need more learning sets - include student nurses

  People can make a change!!

  About the learning sets - I have never heard of that before

  Learning from each other leads to further development

  Working together from the ground up can effect change

  The learning sets

  Open dialogue

  It's there and real

  I learned a question

  Where are the psychiatrists?

  About coming off medication - presentation by Marcello

  The development of recovery teams from last year

  Pats presentation made complete sense and gave me a lot of food for thought


Bright ideas:

  Including student nurses in things such as learning sets

  Next year use open space technology as a method

  Be positive, be loving

  Support/ train lived experience people to help sufferers in recovery - peer support is powerful !!!

  Train (informal ) carers. They doing the job 24/7 all year.

  Open channels between med / bio and social / env models

  More OT involvement and activities

  At last: medication causes weight gain UREKA

  Celebrate 3rd sector and recognise their input

  Doodling / colouring helps you concentrate when you are tired, helps with the processing of information

  More patients stories

  Remaining curious about ... Instead of "I know about "

  Link up more with like - minded others

  Give mental health staff basic religious education so they can be sensitive to peoples beliefs

  Common approach and thinking !

  Care in the community is carers - us - the community involve us and save money

  Open doors, no restraint.


Five things that you will do because you attended this conference...

  Chase decision makers

  Share ideas / Listen / Be open with others / Promote - be proactive

  Join the IMHCN / Get Liza and Julie to come and talk at Uni / Consider research partnerships and make a plan / Get students to reflect on what they have learned / Tell the team about it

  I will feed back ideas to an acute ward I am on at the moment / I will think more carefully how I talk to service users

  Encourage placement to be more active in recovery / Involve service users / Mental health needs to evolve in services to be active in this / Individuality / Recovery as important as environment

  Not speak when service users not there / Introduce more music / Be myself more / Enjoy liberation

  Investigate working with Euan EIP to bring body / H promo into EIP service (from David shires )

  Listen to professionals point of view / Uncover their opinions and experiences / (Still) try to understand why we have only opposing models of mental illness / Is mental illness a dirty word ?

  Try to make change / Teach others what we have learned / Involve student nurses / Placements with HVG / Recovery

  Mindfulness / Collaboration . Therapeutic Relationship / Partnership working / Respect

  Health promotion / Need to communicate / Learn from each other / Differences in services / User experiences


Leaves of wishes for the conference:

  Services need to engage fully with the people who are involved with them. Full participation from the ground up not tokenistic - jan

  I would like to empower service users that I work with in the future to give feedback on their care, what changes would they like to see and to work towards their recovery

  To create an environment where equal partnerships flourish

  The power to shift change without though to 'equal ' relationships between professionals and service users

  I wish to work towards seeing a practice where recovery focused care is the norm

  Collaborative communication

  What was it set up ?

  Sunshine please

  not treating people as fragile !!

  Mental health promotion

  Would like to see learning sets in practice

  Lots of information - Good. But need more light things. 🙂 🙂

  Look more at mental and physical health as a whole 🙂

  More guest speakers in practice to challenge the medical model

  I think choosing a key worker / nurse is a great idea - to maximise the chances of building relationships working towards recovery


Seeds of Ideas:

  See more widespread peer mentoring to promote recovery

  To strive and breakaway from oppression and custodial nursing

  Choices

  We can all relate to recovery .... In Mental health or physical health

  I want to meet people with good practical ideas about recovery - Julia Terry

  The idea of measuring outcomes - should this have an economic agenda or should it be service user need driven only ?

  Kindness is the key

  I would like to know how you are getting GPs involved in the process, as they are the first

point of contact for many who have MH difficulties

  Service user involvement is always the key

  ASK What is the mental ill health saying? NOT Have to have that person normal


Day 2 - All the above plus:

Caterpillars: Thoughts about change:

  More / wider education about MH including in schools, remove ignorance fear and stigma

  Put the person with MH issues at the centre, not the service

  Recovery starts with a story that has to be heard

  Choice would be the norm rather than the exception

  Open 24 hour access for non coercive support CREATIVITY freedom LIFE

  Let's end the stigma and discrimination of mental health

Butterflies – anything that has transformed your thinking:

  Realising that there are people in influential positions who genuinely want change - We need them!

  Hope

  People should have a lifestyle programme if they are given medication

Can of worms / Philosophical worms Questions and issues raised - can of worms

  Fear of talking about reducing or coming off major tranquillisers or medication Where / with who does the ownership of recovery lie, If it lies with the service user how does the empowerment work? What are the outcomes?

  All the endless WAG stuff we have to adhere to .....

  Benefit systems that encourage people to be dependant / ill !

  Psychiatrists wedded to medical / technical model

  Before you can have a recovery - orientated services first you need more quality in the M.D.T.

  Staff on wards can be very negative towards new ideas. When I suggest things they think I am inexperienced and do not understand

  HARD TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE

  Changing ward cultures

Issues overcome – Philosophical worms. Philosophical worms - the solutions

  Remembering patients are still people - just saying hello helps

  When faced with an elder laughing and ridiculing your ideas, smile , pull back and re engage later

  Chip chip chip away - through befriending

  Reclaiming communities CYMUNED X

  Talking recovery is great - doing is the challenge - embedding a recovery approach as an action , which needs to happen. !!

  Spend a week as a MH patient on a ward


Was it topper or was it pants?

  Topper - Rich and streaked with compassion

  Topper - Inspired ! Smiley sticker

  Pants - hard work, sticker grumpy face

  Topper - but enjoyed Stickers: smiley face, big tick, well done

  Topper - inspiring Stickers - well done, smiley face

  Topper- motivational two days! Sticker - smiley face

  Topper - Too many speakers, particularly rushed on Thursday but very inspiring

  Topper- TOPS

  Topper- stickers- well done x two

  Topper- Topper ! ten out of ten

  Topper - Fab

  Topper - stickers well done, big tick, smiley face

  Topper- stickers , well done ! Smiley face , big tick x 2

  Topper - it was inspiring ! Speakers were brilliant. Stickers , well done ! Smiley face

  Topper- what an experience. Thank you, topper ! Stickers - smiley face

  Topper Sticker smiley face

  Pants - no lunch on day two after morning event


On Target:

This form was put out on delegate’s chairs 1st thing of second day.

With this standard form we measured conference delegate’s opinions on eight areas on a 1-5 segmented dart board target. The eight headed sections were:

The conference. Access
Facilities
New Learning Information Atmosphere Catering

Hard work but rewarding

153 /175
140 / 175 (1 comment: Got Lost)
142 / 175 (2 comments: Bad seating / chairs!) 147 / 175
154 /175
163 /175
134 /175
156 /175 (1 comment: Don’t know yet)

If we edge number of points possible would be: 175. (only 3 forms gave full marks) score bulls eye as the full five points and each segment decreases in value towards the outer scoring 1, out of the 35 completed forms (25 signed and dated – 1 just dated) the total


Can I have a word?

This form was put out on delegate’s chairs 1st thing of second day.

A total of 45 forms filled out with 35 signed and dated, 2 just dated and 8 unsigned, undated. One feedback sheet had only one box filled in, one feedback sheet had corner ripped off)

One word to describe Atmosphere.

Overwhelmed, Happy, Hopeful (3),

Inspiring(2),

hard work, positive (6),

warm, Good (2),

friendly (5),

Eye opening, Stimulating, Buzzing!(3),

Approachable, thought provoking, open hearted, loved it, infectious, Great, turmoil, excited, exciting / accepting, inclusive, positive, peace, heart- warming, inspirational, energetic, enthusiastic, relaxed, encouraging.

One word to describe the conference.

Hard work and rewarding, Inspirational (5)

, inspiring (8),

needed, hopeful, challenging, energy, thought provoking, informative(2),

stimulating, interesting (2),

fruitful, momentum – full of, fantastic, attractive, powerful, excellent (2)

/ informative, energising, collaborative, informative, educational, exhilarating, discovery, Tiring, learning, exciting, positive, rich, Day1 tiring / Day2 invigorating.

(one feedback sheet had this corner missing)

One word to describe the Programme.

Varied (2),

Rushed, busy (2),

Fantastic! Full (6),

Recovery, optimistic, positive, educational, infectious, varied (3)

and relevant, nice, thought provoking (2),

excellent, Promising (recovery), ambitious (2),

informative, intense (2),

good(2), connected, full on(2)

synchronistic, overcrowded – (too many presenters), rushed, crammed, packed, overloaded, busy, overwhelming, stuffed, holistic, too long.

One word to describe the Facilities.

Beautiful Gardens, Neat, Great (3),

Pleasant (2)(not the seats), Beautiful (3),

Uncomfortable, Peaceful, Practical, Good (8),

Excellent (5), delightful, Very Good, Correct!

Nice (2), Great (2)(food should have been labelled for vegetarians,

Brilliant, Comfortable, OK (4),

Good but needed water and / or squash as well as Tea and Coffee, Airy, Adequate.

Screen Shot 2015-09-13 at 12.45.03


And finally, what could we have done differently?

More: Less: Discuss: IT. Interactive. Timings. Nothing (3). Slower workshops and in-depth discussion / breakouts.
chairs that don’t hate people.
Not so long talks and more breaks.

Less rushed, more time for presenters who have travelled long distances to provide their input. Take it a bit more slowly.
Agenda was too ambitious.
More time for Q and A.

Agenda less crammed, workshops more interactive.

More info stands – use the Dome too.

Allow more time for the programme or cut some parts out.

Less could be more – done far too much sitting down and it hurts (my bum).

All very good (missed the biscuits but fab welsh cakes / tell people twitter feed at start of conference.

Refreshments at lunch time (Sun) What about a careers view?? More time to go into more depth.
Elaborate on the good stuff.
More time to network.

Given the speakers more time and not cut them short when they have put so much into the presentation, less is more.

Brilliant conference, more interaction and longer breaks.
In-between sessions, keeping people outside the Marque quite – very distracting.

Some speakers were a bit rushed due to time constraints, 2nd day too much crammed in not enough breaks.

Have more time for presentations.
A day longer or fewer speakers (but how would you choose). More time for workshops – they were rushed.

Harnessing creativity to improve lives and communities. Specialists in innovative, inspiring and engaging training.

Better chairs.

Sorted the IT, sort the uncomfortable seating. Less content more interactions

Less sitting for long periods.

Less content more dialogue.

Allowed some different time slots.

Better time management.


Background to Evaluation

Having taken on board the information of how last years conference went, in terms of intensity, tiredness and mental fatigue due to the presentation of large chunks of information; a difficulty and a frustration from delegates in processing such a large number of presentations no matter how interesting and groundbreaking.

Our response was to introduce an interactive and dynamic evaluation and monitoring process; we presented initially a raft of multisensory creative responses designed to circumnavigate the mental fatigue, stimulate thinking and input, create an opportunity to capture a deeper evaluation of each persons experience of the event, their reactions to speakers, a way to register their new learning by documenting their ongoing thoughts with emphasis upon how they planned to implement the new ways of thinking and working, that were being presented with.

The overall theme of the feedback strategy was linked to the senses, ie ‘what did you think?’, ‘how did it make you feel’? ‘What did you see that you liked?’ all designed to elicit a number of personal responses, to specifically capture moments of an individuals journey through the whole conference.

Emphasis on it being:

  Accessible
  Colourful

  Creative

  Accessible

  Interactive

  Playful

  Exciting

Designed to be inviting enough to allow:

  a number of different or similar responses from each person,
  to appeal to a wide range of people,

 

  to identify and highlight a collective journey / response.

As well as picking up and identifying the new ideas and strategies that conference delegates wish to see implemented as a result of their attendance at the conference.


Barriers to getting feedback:

  People go into auto pilot  People go into receive mode

  Back to back presentation packed conference schedule with no time for reflection, interaction to main speakers allows no opportunity to gather feedback information.

  People are individuals and respond differently, at different times with different things and have an increased tendency to forget what they really felt / thought of one presentation as it becomes one in a long line of presentations.

  Thinking and reasoning capacity becomes switched off and then when presented with a traditional evaluation sheet, which get cursory attention and a tokenistic response as the main tendency is for people just wanting / needing to network then leave.

  Challenges of getting feedback is often what a person articulates, in conversation /on the spur of the moment is not what they actually write down when asked, all kinds of issues can come into play, ie literacy, handwriting,

(recording something makes it more concrete and so people are more likely to change the essence of what they initially spoke about, losing its power and its more meaningful message).


The most valuable contribution people make to any conference is the gift of their time, some give greatly and generously by putting in many hours preparing various matters pertaining to hosting the event, preparing presentations. Others contribute by attending, questioning, adding their knowledge, skills and understanding to the whole. Many participate by beginning to put into practice new ways of seeing and doing and being in their work roles. Changing what needs to be changed, addressing what needs to be addressed. For these reasons and a whole lot more not stated, we handed out individually stamped; thank you cards.

The thank you cards contained a paper flying butterfly.

The concept of the conference delegate’s joint butterfly ‘release’ was to act as a finale, to refresh and revitalise, bring everyone together - connect individuals with the group as a whole in a shared experience of celebrating change, to reinforce and embed the concept of change and transformation.

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