Improving Mental Health

The social support someone receives or has access to plays a vital role in their mental health and wellbeing. This accessible book examines the nature of social support and how it can be enhanced, focusing on relationships between service users and supporters. This is an important book for mental health professionals, social workers and students. Social support refers to the everyday help and reassurance that friends, relatives, colleagues and others give each other throughout their lives. Social support can protect against mental distress and help people to deal with the effects of mental health problems. Since the majority of service users spend most of their time in social rather than medical or psychotherapeutic settings, it is essential that mental health and social care practitioners have an understanding of the dynamics of social support in order to work more effectively with service users. This book explores the nature of interactions between service users and their informal supporters and carers, whilst also considering the implications for providers of services. The nature of social support is examined both in informal settings such as friendship groups, families and communities, as well as in more formal contexts such as educational institutions and workplaces, and consideration is given to how such support can be fostered. Social support is the everyday assistance offered by family, friends, neighbours and colleagues, as well as the foundations of support in a range of non-clinical settings, and plays a vital role in a person's mental health and wellbeing.This book examines the nature of social support and offers a practical approach to how it can be enhanced. Focusing on the relationships between service users and supporters , it examines service users' experiences of issues of identity, stigma, social exclusion and social networks. Individual chapters look in depth at how social support is enacted in close relationships, educational institutions and in the world of employment. The nature of 'community' is explored with particular reference to how service users can be supported into greater engagement with social networks.Demonstrating the importance of social perspectives on mental health, this book is essential reading for practitioners, students and educators in mental health, social and community work, community mental health nursing and occupational therapy.