Vision
The project aims to empower individuals with severe mental illness to overcome social exclusion and in doing so, improve their physical and mental well-being. We will do this by establishing a community coalition to tackle health inequalities. The CHOICE model will improve access to diverse resources such as arts, leisure, and sports.
Aims
People with long-term mental health problems die much younger than the general population from preventable causes. This is not just a medical issue; there is a need to address the contributory social and psychological factors. While some of the poor health of this population may be attributed to lifestyle behaviours and psychotropic medication, other social and psychological factors such as low self-esteem, exclusion, loneliness, and discrimination are indirectly implicated.
CHOICE seeks to improve the lives of people living with long-term mental health problems by tackling the fundamental health and social inequalities they experience. We aim to end the avoidable loneliness, discrimination, and poor health that many people with severe mental illness face. We will do this by opening access to the widest range of community assets – places, resources, and facilities that most people take for granted.
The mechanisms behind such disparities are systemic and multifactorial, requiring integrated cross-sectoral and person-centred approaches that are currently patchy or absent. Missing too are the voices of people with mental health problems and their families.
CHOICE will develop new, creative, and integrative approaches to delivering better health and social opportunities to people with severe mental illness, approaches that can overcome the many barriers within a fragmented ‘system’ of care and support. CHOICE works with a community coalition of partners across all organisational boundaries - in the community and voluntary sectors, health and social care, education, arts, sports, and leisure - to harness and combine their strengths towards radical changes in tackling inequalities.
Social Prescribing and Community Navigators
CHOICE will help support community groups to be inclusive, accessible and sustainable, and assist in creating new groups and activities through working collaboratively with all local partners and our social prescribing approach.
Social prescribing is a non-medical approach to improving health, connecting people to a wide range of community activities, groups, organisations and services that may facilitate important practical, social and emotional needs. Commonly, local agencies in social care and health services refer people to a community navigator, sometimes called a ‘link worker’. The idea is simply to help connect the person to activities, places and people that have a beneficial impact on their health and wellbeing. Community navigators work with the individual to coproduce a meaningful and doable plan.
Who funds CHOICE?
CHOICE is funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC).
AHRC is a part of UKRI (UK Research and Innovation), which, in collaboration with BBSRC (Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council), ESRC (Economic and Social Research Council), MRC (Medical Research Council), NERC (Natural Environment Research Council) and NCCH (National Centre for Creative Health) launched 'The Mobilising Community Assets to Reduce Health Inequalities Programme’, led by Professor Helen Chatterjee.
These are groundbreaking initiatives aimed at tackling health disparities and holistic well-being across communities in the UK through promoting access to culture, nature, and community.
This programme seeks to tackle entrenched and long-standing health inequalities in Britain’s poorest communities by exploring how health systems can collaborate more effectively with communities.
Watch the CHOICE Documentary
Our Values
Experts by experience are individuals with lived experience of mental illness, thus bringing their unique experience and expertise whatever capacity they are engaged by institutions and agencies whether this might be as consultants, co-researchers, advisory boards members, or other committees. In healthcare there is a general acceptance that a shared decision-making approach is beneficial to both service users and clinicians, creating a more meaningful and effective therapeutic alliance.
An authentic participatory approach will ensure that our research reflects the real concerns and insights of those with mental illness. It ensures that all participants can contribute to key aspects of the development of the CHOICE model in addition to aspects of the research process, such as the design, data collection, and analysis.
In the co-production of research, the involvement of experts by experience is intended to generate important knowledge that is impactful for policy and practice. However, co-produced research and associated activities are not always meaningful to people with lived experience and are often tokenistic or exploitative. Thus, we feel it is important that the CHOICE project team is guided by accepted principles and best practice in working with people with lived experience. Some of these are already embedded within, and underpinned by, ethical approval.
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Expert participation
Whenever possible, we will encourage participants to take an active role in the research process, allowing them to shape the outcomes and giving them agency over how their experiences are represented.
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Consent
All participants must fully understand the nature of the research, including its aims, methods, potential risks, and benefits. Researchers should ensure that individuals with mental health conditions are provided with all necessary information in a timely and accessible manner, addressing any concerns about consent capacity. Consent should not be a one-time event but an ongoing process, where participants are reminded of their rights and updated on any changes in the study.
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Transparency
Any proposed activities and outputs that are presented as part of CHOICE and which involve experts by experience, must demonstrate how they are aligned with the CHOICE project. The agreed pro-forma should clearly state the proposed activity and justify the inclusion of experts by experience that are associated with the project. This will ensure that participation is meaningful and not intended for the sole benefit of academics. Potential participants will be provided with all relevant information pertaining to the activity and that there is clarity of their role and the expectations and demands placed on them.
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Communication
Throughout the CHOICE project we will provide participants with clear information about the goals, progress, and outcomes of the study.
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Remuneration
Provide compensation for participants' time and effort, ensuring that their contributions are valued and that there is no exploitation of their lived experiences. Experts by experience must be remunerated for any activities that they have agreed to participate in. Researchers must indicate in advance on the pro-forma, what the remuneration is, when it will be paid and the source.
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Reasonable accommodation
Researchers will ensure flexibility in their arrangements with experts by experience, adaptable in their responses for reasonable changes during all stages of the process.
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Mutual respect and trust
We should acknowledge that any engagement with experts by experience there is likely to be a considerable power imbalance. All team members must ensure that participants feel respected and trusted for their competency, skills and reliability. Our activities must be free from judgement and criticism and that all contributions should be treated with the same respect due to any other research participant.
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Avoiding harm
Everyone must fully consider the potential for exploitation or the perception of exploitation. So, researchers should fully consider their motivations for engaging experts by experience.
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Shared knowledge
Researchers in CHOICE will take responsibility for the potential impact their work may have on participants, the wider community, and policy. Findings should be shared with participants in accessible ways, including the implications of the research for mental health advocacy and policy.
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Diversity and equality
As far as possible, we will strive to ensure that different population groups are represented and involved in the full spectrum of CHOICE activities, with respect to age, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender, religion and so forth without distinction. Researchers must recognise and be responsive to the cultural, social, and individual contexts of mental illness. This includes considering the intersectionality of race, gender, socioeconomic status, and other factors that may influence a person's experience of mental illness.
Find out more about CHOICE
Team
Find out more about who works on the CHOICE project
Resources and Outputs
Find out more about the resources CHOICE has developed
Contact
Get in touch with the CHOICE team.