A Shared Story: Co-Producing a Life Story Intervention and Research Proposal for People With Severe Mental Health Conditions Living in Inpatient Mental Health Rehabilitation Units or Residential Care Homes

Service users with severe mental health conditions living in residential care homes or inpatient mental health rehabilitation units suffer from complex and long-term symptoms and disabilities. In order to develop effective novel interventions for this group, it is crucial to involve all stakeholders from the outset, focusing on acceptability and feasibility, adopting principles of co-production. Given the wish to implement recovery-oriented care, and the importance of identity for recovery, one would assume that life stories have an established place in the treatment of this group of service users. However, we observed that a focus on life stories was generally lacking, and stated the intention to improve practice. The aim of current manuscript is (1) to describe our experiences with co-producing a life story intervention and research proposal for people with severe mental health conditions living in inpatient mental health rehabilitation units and residential care homes; (2) to describe the designed intervention (A Shared Story) and the research proposal for the pilot study. By using the Circling Around Your Research methodology (CAYR), we strived for genuine co-production and countering power inequality. CAYR is a working methodology supporting researchers in developing a practice-based research proposal in co-production with stakeholders. We describe the development by co-production of the intervention A Shared Story and a research proposal for a pilot study, and reflect on our experiences. The primary aim of A Shared Story is to contribute to personal recovery by accompanying service users in reflecting on their life story. Our experiences with co-production using the CAYR method are unanimously positive. Our advice for project groups considering working with this or a similar methodology concern the necessity for exercises helping to create trust and equality, the importance of process arrangements on role distribution and on resolving disagreements, and the need for critical reflection on representation.