The Avon Mental Health Measure
| Pages | 31-32 |
| Published date | 01 December 1996 |
| Date | 01 December 1996 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/13619322199600042 |
| Author | Damaris Le Grand,Earle Kessler,Barnaby Reeves |
| Subject Matter | Health & social care |
The Mental Health Review 1:4 © Pavilion Publishing (Brighton) 1996 31
The Avon Mental Health Measure
CASE STUDY
Damaris Le Grand, Strategic Planning Officer
BRISTOL SOCIAL SERVICES
Earle Kessler, Regional Director
SOUTH WEST MIND
Barnaby Reeves, Senior Lecturer
UNIVERSITY OF BRISTOL
P
eople who use psychiatric services, mental
health workers and professionals have joined
forces to develop a new way of responding
to the needs of those in mental distress. Together
they have created the Avon Mental Health
Measure — a quality of life instrument designed to:
●help users engage in a self assessment process
and prepare for the Care Programme Approach
and Care Management;
●provide a common language and ‘whole person’
approach to assessment;
●provide information to improve services,
particularly better reporting of unmet need.
The Avon Mental Health Measure is a radical
departure from ‘traditional’ assessment processes;
and it is badly needed. People needing help have
long been telling statutory services that they find it
difficult to have their needs properly assessed, let
alone met. The Measure is designed to both
challenge — and change — this fact.
Most people who see mental health professionals
for help are entering a world of coded language,
where the problem is often seen as a medical label
(‘depressive’, ‘schizophrenic’ and so on) and treated
with what the agency can provide, rather than what
someone needs. Many users have suffered the
consequences of inappropriate language and
labelling. Professionals have begun to recognise
the need for a different approach. Over the last five
years, there has been a consistent emphasis from
the NHSE and the Department of Health for the
statutory sector to target services at people in greatest
need. The lack of an agreed measure of severity for
mental illness and its impact on functioning was
recognised as a stumbling block to good joint working
arrangements in general. This realisation formed the
basis of the Avon Measure Working Group.
At its heart was the idea of a partnership
between service users and carers, psychiatrists,
psychologists, social workers and voluntary
organisations. The Working Group started life in
1993, chaired by Avon Social Services (now Bristol
Social Services) and began work on the first draft
of a document then known as the Social Definition
of Mental Health. The project was recognised as a
unique exercise by a grant from the Mental Health
Task Force which enabled the Group to hold a
workshop to try out some of its early ideas on a
much wider audience of service users, GPs, CPNs,
social workers and voluntary workers. A draft
Measure was produced and piloted by research
teams from Bristol University and the United Bristol
Healthcare Trust with funding from the South &
West RHA. The research assessed both the validity
of the Measure and user response.
Following the pilot study, the draft document
was considerably amended, including two workshops
for service users alone, to seek further feedback on
the contents of the Measure and how it could best
be used. A workshop for health and social services
staff identified a role for the Measure alongside
existing CPA and Care Management systems.
A final workshop was organised for the voluntary
sector to gain their views on its usefulness and
possible role for their services.
The result is a Measure that lets people examine
25 aspects of their life, including: housing, ability to
self care, effects of medication, social support, daily
routine, experience of discrimination, community
involvement, risk to self, anger, substance misuse,
mood swings, experiences of a number of mental
health symptoms, income, communication skills and
opportunities, money management and sleep distur-
bance. It allows users to detail what they would like
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