Jenny Rathbone MS meets with team and students at Recovery & Wellbeing College
Member of Senedd for Cardiff Central, Jenny Rathbone recently visited students and the team at the Recovery & Wellbeing College at Cardiff and Vale University Health Board to learn more about the value of co-production and peer support in the delivery of mental health services.
Welcomed by Charles ‘Jan’ Janczewski, Chair, and Ceri Phillips, Vice Chair of Cardiff and Vale University Health Board, together with Hannah Morland-Jones, Head of Lived Experience and Recovery & Wellbeing College and Dan Crossland, Director of Operations for Mental Health Clinical Board, Jenny Rathbone MS was invited to learn more about the Recovery College’s approach to co-production and peer support.
The Recovery & Wellbeing College provides free educational courses on a range of mental health, physical health and wellbeing topics, and anyone can enrol to be a student to access wellbeing support at all levels of their recovery.
With co-production at the heart of the Recovery College, Jenny Rathbone MS heard from peer trainers and leads, occupational therapists and a student at the college about how their lived experience helps to provide students with hope as they embark upon their personal journey through recovery.
“It was a great opportunity to welcome Jenny Rathbone MS to meet with our team at the Recovery & Wellbeing College. The Health Board is incredibly proud of the progress made in Lived Experience Innovation and it is inspiring to see the value this has on the delivery of services. The Health Board is committed to further embed the elements into transformation work across the organisation, driven by an agenda that service users are involved to shape the service they receive,” commented Jan Janczewski, Chair at Cardiff and Vale University Health Board.
Due to the success of the Recovery & Wellbeing College in Cardiff and Vale University Health Board, the Recovery College approach has been included in the implementation plan of the Strategic Mental Health Workforce Plan for Health and Social Care in Wales.
In addition, Hannah Morland-Jones is working directly with Health Education and Improvement Wales as Strategic Programme Manager for Lived Experience, on rolling out the approach on a national basis for the benefit of everyone across Wales.