The Working to Recovery Team
Ron Coleman
Ron Coleman is a Mental Health Trainer and Consultant specialising in Recovery and Psychosis. Following his role as national co-ordinator of the ‘Hearing Voices Network’ he used his experiences of recovery to design Workbooks and Training packages, to enable voice hearers to gain ascendancy over the negative aspects of the voice hearing experience.
Ron’s own route to recovery after spending 13 years in and out of the psychiatric system has given him many insights into the numerous difficult issues facing today’s mental health services. He is now back in his homeland of Scotland after 20 years of self imposed exile!
Ron is the author of ‘Recovery – An Alien Concept?’ and co –authored ‘Working With Voices’ and ‘Working To Recovery’. Ron has published several books including the above and also ‘Politics of the Madhouse’.
Karen Taylor
Karen Taylor is an RMN with 16 years experience in the NHS in England with both older people and adults of working age. Karen has personal experience of designing, implementing and managing innovative community care services.
After leaving the NHS, Karen managed the company ‘Keepwell Ltd’ for 2 years, where she ran a psychosis resolution service based on recovery and co-authored the workbook, ‘Working to Recovery’.
Karen has also been involved in introducing Recovery Training into Australia, New Zealand, Palestine, Denmark and Italy as well as throughout the United Kingdom.
Based in Scotland, Karen is Director of ‘Working to Recovery Ltd, alongside Ron Coleman. Karen and Ron are passionate that recovery is for all, including workers, and together they travel the world, telling their story of recovery and spreading a message based on hope, engaging with mental health services, carers and service users and challenging them to review their roles and embrace recovery for all.
Paul Baker
Paul Baker is a community development and group worker. He has a Post-graduate Diploma in Community Education, specialising in working with young people and people with mental health problems.
Paul has worked in the health care and education sectors for the last 30 years. He had the responsibility for developing innovative mental health care services in the community. These include services run by the people who use them, self-advocacy services, supported housing services, social firms and enterprises as well as the development of forums for people to enable them to have a direct imput in the development and running of services. For fifteen years Paul was the chairperson of a large housing association for homeless people in Manchester.
Paul was one of the founding members of the Hearing Voices Network in England and is currently the coordinator of INTERVOICE, the influential coordinating body for the international hearing voices movement. He also specialises in assisting organisations in harnessing and developing online communities to complement and support their work. Most recently Paul has worked with the Mental Health Foundation, Working to Recovery, Radish Online Ltd, the Scottish Hearing Voices Network.
He has a special interest in working with groups of people to find ways of help themselves overcome difficulties and problems. He also has a strong commitment ot forging international partnerships in the development of progressive and effective mental health services.
Paul has published books and written chapters and articles for many publications on mental health issues. He provides consultancy services, lectures and trains on empowerment and recovery issues and the relationships these have to effective mental health service delivery.
Jim Campbell
Jim Campbell, RMN, MA, Dip (Training & Dev) is a mental health trainer, researcher and practitioner. He has over 15 years experience in health and social care within mental health nursing and support worker roles in the NHS, Social Work and Voluntary sectors.
In more recent years he has specialised in mental health recovery, working in research, education and practice both nationally and internationally. He enjoys writing and has publications in mental health magazines, journals, books and websites.
Jim has been working independently since 2007, working with various organisations including Working to Recovery, Scottish Recovery Network, NHS Lothian and NHS Education for Scotland. He continues to be employed as a mental health nurse, grounding all his work within practice.
Jim was awarded the prestigious Florence Nightingale Foundation scholarship in 2005, undertaking a study tour of Australia and New Zealand, taking of scoping look at recovery orientated projects and services.
He has a long standing interest in developing alternative understandings, systems and tools for helping people who experience problems in life. His passion and enthusiasm lies in recovery, given people hope that change can and will happen.
Eleanor Longden
Eleanor Longden is psychologist, currently undertaking a PhD, she works with the Bradford Early Intervention in Psychosis Team. As a voice hearer and past user of psychiatric services, she has a strong interest in promoting tolerance, awareness and positive explanations for mental health issues, and for the last four years has worked in both a clinical and academic capacity to endorse creative, enabling approaches to experiences such as voice-hearing, unusual beliefs and self-injury
Dirk Corstens
Dirk has been a social psychiatrist and psychotherapist since 1992. He is educated in cognitive, psychodynamic and systems therapy, Transactional Analysis and Voice Dialogue work. Since 1992, Dirk has been Collaborator in the Hearing Voices Project of the University of Maastricht, with Prof. Marius Romme and Dr Sandra Escher and is closely involved in working with voice hearers. Dirk developed the recovery programme, ‘Working with Voices’, and is currently preparing research on this subject.
