The Buddy Scheme is an initiative that offers students from a range of clinical professions, including mental health nurses, occupational therapists, physiotherapists and IAPT trainees, the opportunity to learn from those with lived experience through a series of 1:1 and small group sessions. Each session is an in depth discussion focusing on various aspects of a persons experience using mental health services and of their experience living with mental illness, within the context of the family, work and the wider community.
Students are encouraged to enquire with sensitivity and respect, seeing the ‘person behind the patient’, whilst at the same time developing their ability to build trust, rapport and develop their listening and questioning skills.
To find out more about the Buddy Scheme, please take a look at the video below.