Dr.Shari McDaid, who is known to us all from her wonderful singing and her direction of the church choir. She recently completed a Doctorate in Equality Studies at the Equality Studies Centre, School of Social Justice, University College Dublin. Her research was on how people with a diagnosis of mental illness could be more equally involved in policymaking about the mental health services. The project involved action research with 20 mental health service users and ex-service users from across the Republic. Working with the service users, she designed and delivered a training programme to them on how to participate on advisory committees. Chris Hudson delivered the negotiation skills training and this was a huge boost to the project! The group later presented a submission to the Irish Congress of Trade Unions about extending the medical card. Two of the training participants went on to be appointed to the HSE’s interim National Service User Exeuctive.
Shari also did interviews with the service users, asking what kinds of barriers they found in trying to participate on committees with mental health professionals, and what they thought would assist them to participate better. The results of this research were published in a policy paper in August, 2006, and have been presented at two conferences, one at Dublin City University, and one at Boston University. In her doctoral thesis, she also developed a definition of empowerment for people with a diagnosis of mental illness. She will be delivering a paper on this idea of empowerment at the Asylum conference in Manchester in September.
Shari is now working as a Researcher and Policy Analyst at the Work Research Centre and continues to do training with service users on how to participate on advisory committees. She says that doing a doctorate was a very rewarding experience. It helped her to gain confidence that, in collaboration with others, she can do work that has a real impact. If you would like more information about this work, please feel free to contact Shari at s.mcdaid@wrc-research.ie.