Trainer and Consultant

I retired from the NHS in March 2009 after around 30 years of working in mental health as:
• Approved Social Worker.
• Community Mental Health Team Manager for four teams.
• Senior trainer for staff moving from institutions into the community.
• Practice manager for a private clinic on Dartmoor.
• Consultant with the Centre for Mental Health Service Development, working in Glasgow, St Albans, Surrey, Gloucester, Wales and Winchester, Yorkshire and Leicester.
• CPA system development worker in Plymouth, New Zealand and Devon.
• Primary Care Counselling Service Manager of 15 counselors covering 45 surgeries in Plymouth.
• Practice Development Manager in Wanganui, New Zealand.
• Practice Development Manager for Devon Partnership NHS Trust.

I have : published 15 articles, self help booklets and training manuals; been chair of the National Association of Mental Health Centres; chair of the National Network of Counselling Service Providers; spoken at dozens of conferences and run workshops on a variety of topics.

The most important development in mental health in my career has been Recovery. Other developments changed the setting and the structure of mental health services. Recovery has begun to look at something more important - the quality of relationships, the balance of power and the individual nature of personal recovery.

Since I was inspired by recovery ideas in New Zealand in 2001, recovery has been focus of all my work through:
• Training over 350 Support Time and Recovery Workers (STaR) from 21 organisations in Devon in recovery and self-management in 28 three-day courses. STaR course in Dorset.
• Organising and administering two major two-day conferences involving Mary Ellen Copeland, Shery Mead, Frank Bristol, Rufus May, Frank Gonzales and a five-day Intentional Peer Support courses run by Shery Mead and Chris Hanson.
• Jointly setting up Recovery Devon (an open forum of people with lived experience, supporters and mental health staff) and administering for five years.
• Attending a five-day Wellness Recovery Action Plan (WRAP) course with Mary Ellen Copeland and cascading WRAP training to dozens of groups across the mental health community.
• Membership of the Sainsbury Centre for Mental Health Group looking at Making Recovery a Reality.
Topics I offer for training workshops or presentations:
• Recovery-history and development; turning recovery ideas into practice; partnership working; implications for mental health services; contacts with recovery orientated services; range of recovery resources.
• Wellness Recovery Action Planning (WRAP); key self-management skills and their relationship with WRAP.
• STaR worker training packages.

Also:
• Team development.
• Facilitation.
• Consultation.