Welcome to our Vision for Involvement
“It gives me great pleasure working towards a shared goal concerning primarily about mental health, to give back my experiences learnt and to work for something much bigger than myself.” Expert by Experience
| Our Involvement strategy reflects our core values. We recognise and respect that our Experts by Experience and all the people involved with us are more than their diagnoses and experiences – they are unique individuals with skills, interests and aspirations that stretch beyond their mental health challenges. We are all people. |
Involvement benefits everyone
“We should aim to be unashamed about our mental health problems. I think doing this kind of work, people see us and some of them might say oh, OK, you’re quite capable, that’s nice to see. Because you know lots of things, let’s say the benefits system for example, they want to focus on the way that you’re incapable. And that makes life difficult. I’m not ashamed of my mental health problems, but I am still capable and have lots of other skills.” Expert by Experience
It is our privilege to work to improve people’s mental health, and involvement means that our internal as well as front line staff will be more connected to the everyday issues of living with a mental health problem.
There are many benefits to a culture of working together, because meaningfully engaging people in our work will ensure it is informed by a broad range of experiences and will effectively meet diverse needs. Listening to a diverse range of voices will mean our projects and services will be more effective at meeting the needs of a wide range of people. Co-producing our information will mean it is more useful to the people who receive it and easier to understand. Involvement in our communications will demonstrate more clearly how support for Oxfordshire Mind transforms more lives.
You don’t need to have used our services to have your voice heard.
We recognise that all lived experience provides valuable insight and, in order to hear from a diverse range of voices, our involvement will not be limited to just Oxfordshire Mind service users. If you have lived with a mental health challenge yourself, or by caring for a friend or family member with this experience, we’d love to talk to you – whatever services you may or may not have used.
We see you as experts.
Your experience, knowledge and skills are valuable to us and we see you as having expert knowledge.
Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Equality of Involvement
When reaching out to people with lived experience of mental health problems regarding involvement opportunities, we want you to know:
Whatever your ethnicity your voice will be heard and acknowledged
Whatever you sexuality your voice will be heard and acknowledged
Whatever your gender your voice will be heard and acknowledged
Whatever your age your voice will be heard and acknowledged
Whatever your nationality your voice will be heard and acknowledged
Whatever your economic background your voice will be heard and acknowledged
Whatever your physical health your voice will be heard and acknowledged
Whatever your religion or beliefs your voice will be heard and acknowledged
We will always ensure that our opportunities are advertised fairly and in accessible ways, and that no one is excluded from applying.
Benefits of participation and involvement to you
If you chose to share your lived experience with us we will make sure that you have the opportunity to explore and share your own reasons for wanting to be involved with Oxfordshire Mind or Mind in Berkshire and set your own goals for what you want to achieve through your involvement. We will then work together to ensure that the opportunities we offer you help to reach these goals. Examples of goals might include: enhancing CVs, building confidence, learning new skills, or meeting an altruistic desire to improve experiences for future service users, or a combination.
Read our Involvement Strategy
Get involved
Want to get involved? We’re always looking for people with lived experience to support and improve our work at Oxfordshire Mind and Mind in Berkshire.
Email: [email protected]