Expert Patient Trainer Project

Hafal’s new Expert Patient Trainer Project is a unique training opportunity aimed at bringing the expertise of those who have a direct experience of mental illness to the training arena. The service will be developed over the next three years with the support of a UK Project Grant from Comic Relief.

Building on the successes of Hafal’s National Learning Centre, and in particular the contribution made by service users as trainer-consultants, the Expert Patient Trainer Project will work to develop training for a variety of organisations in the educational, voluntary, private and public sectors.

Expert patient trainers are service users and carers who are being supported to gain their own training qualifications and to use their knowledge and experience as expert mental health patients to develop quality courses.

Through this new initiative service users and carers will be given a voice to guide and influence the future of mental health services and reduce stigma. With them they will bring the vital ingredient which has all too often been missing – a lived experience of mental illness. It is this ‘lived experienced’ which is able to breathe true understanding and insight into Expert Patient training.

For more information about the project or if you’d like to hear how our Expert Patient Trainers can help take your training beyond theory, please contact:

Dave Smith

Expert Patient Trainer

Tel: 01792 816 600

Email: expertpatient@hafal.org

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