Tree Of Life

For over 2 years, a service user co-led workshop called the ‘Tree of Life ‘was running throughout South London and Maudsley (SLAM) adult acute in-patient service. A team of 10 facilitators from the local community, all with experience of using mental health services were trained to co-facilitate workshops and collaborate with psychologist Dr Julie Fraser and Assistant Psychologist Laura Williams to bring the Tree of Life to inpatient wards at Lambeth, Maudsley, Ladywell and Bethlem Royal hospital sites.

Over 650 service users attended around 150 workshops and nearly 300 members of staff created the ‘Forest of Life’ in SLAM. The project was funded by the Maudsley Charity to run workshops 3 times every week across 14 adult acute wards and 3 Psychiatric Intensive Care Units, all co-facilitated by service users.

The Tree of Life workshops on the wards won a national mental health award for ‘equality and diversity in service provision ‘and a highly commended for ‘patient experience’.

The main focus of the project was to break down barriers between staff and service users; by seeing the person behind the job or the diagnosis to build positive therapeutic relationships and promote recovery.

At the heart of the work was co-production with service users and so the team worked with SLaM Recovery College to run training workshops. This is a film that celebrates our co-production values and commitment to providing compassionate care on the MH inpatient wards.