Designing our own asylums: a service user-led project focused on residential care settings

Background/Objectives: While the majority of service user involvement has focused upon community based services, more EU citizens with complex mental health needs now live in residential/high support settings than in the era of the large hospitals. Unusually for a member of this group, I have had the opportunity to gain academic training. The intention of this project was to use this background to allow service commissioners/providers to better understand the preferences of users of those services. Methods: The project used an ‘observant participant’ method (Kaminsky). This uses the observations of members of th…