Suresearch research projects and resources
Research Resources
Suresearch provides training, opportunities and support for people with personal experience of mental health issues to use their experience and expertise in mental health research. You can read information on projects which Suresearch and its members have worked on below.
Commissions and collaborations
Suresearch has undertaken a number of commissioned research and evaluation projects, and worked in collaboration with others. Brief details of completed and ongoing projects are available here.
Further details of current projects are listed below:
Investigating the contribution of the voluntary sector to mental health crisis care
Suresearch is one of the partners collaborating in the Health Services Management Centre (HSMC) led research project investigating the role of the voluntary sector in mental health crisis care in England, funded under theNational Institute for Health Research Health Services and Delivery Research (HS&DR) Programme. You can read more on this here.
Providing research skills training
Research training for Service Users and carers – ‘Growing a Service User and Carer Resource‘
Suresearch and the Mental Health Research Network, Heart of England Hub, organised three training courses in research skills for service users and carers in 2011-12. You can see more information on this here.
Initiating and leading research
Suresearch supports and encourages members to pursue their own research ideas, write proposals and seek partners and funding.
An exploration of personal recovery in mental health service users
This project, led by Suresearch member, Jo Barber, investigates the process of recovery from a service user viewpoint. You can read more here.
Self and Identity Research: 2011 – 2017 and beyond!
The long title of this research is ‘Influence of mental health difficulties and use of services on people’s sense of self and identity: developing ideas for improving services’.
The project has been a collaboration between our survivor researchers, academic researchers at University of Birmingham, and practitioners in Birmingham and Solihull Mental Health Foundation Trust. We include it under this heading because the idea for the research emerged from service users, themselves, at workshops organised by the former Mental Health Research Network, Heart of England Hub with Suresearch members amongst the facilitators.
We are looking at the impact of mental health difficulties and the impact of mental health services on identity. You can read further information about the project on our Self & Identity Research page.
Suresearch members working on mental health research studies as advisors and co-researchers
Suresearch has facilitated and supported its members to advise on numerous research studies and service development projects and to work as as co-researchers doing all aspects of research including interviewing and analysis. We give a few example below. In all the funded research projects, reported here, members have been paid for their time and expenses.
SoFARR – A study of Social Firms and their role in mental health recovery: 2011-13
This research project, involving University of Warwick and Coventry and Warwickshire Mental Health Partnership Trust mapped Social Firms employing people with mental health problems in the UK, and conducted case studies for selected firms in different pars off the country. Members of Suresearch advised on the project, received training, piloted the interview schedules and interviewed employee participants at the case study sites.
The Time of My Life Project, a Realist Evaluation: 2015-16
Two Suresearch members worked on this project as co- researchers, evaluating a Lottery funded alcohol support service for ‘older people’. We were involved in many aspects of the evaluation, including interviewing service users, conducting focus groups of service users, volunteers and carers, analysing the data using NVivo computer software, and contributing to writing the report. The evaluation was led by academic staff at Manchester Metropolitan University with collaboration from University of Birmingham, You can read the final report here.