The Pen-Y-Fal Study Group. Exploring New Approaches to Learning and Teaching Using Archived Records for Engaging Mental Health Service Users in Research

• Published in: Widening participation and lifelong learning Vol. 17; no. 2; pp. 48 - 64
• Main Authors: Richardson, Mark, Llewellyn, Penny
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Open University 25.04.2015
• Subjects: Action Research; Capabilities Approach; Co-Created Curriculum; Mental Illness; Stealth Teaching; Student Centred Engagement; Widening Participation
• ISSN: 1466-6529
• DOI: 10.5456/WPLL.17.2SI.48

This paper will discuss an innovative pilot project being delivered by the Centre for Community Learning (CCL) at the University of South Wales. The project is an exploration of a collection of archived patient and medical records (1865-1875) from the Pen-Y-Fal 'Lunatic Asylum' situated in South Wales. This innovative co-produced project uses research led curriculum to engage with community based, mental health service-user groups in archive research. The project, sited within the Archive building, uses its education room as a community space for research where academic staff and students, as co-researchers (as experts of narratives of mental illness) work side by side using archived records as their subject source. This approach to engagement in learning builds a unique but personal journey through both the historic and contemporary narrative of mental illness, treatment and intervention for recovery. Such an educational journey also encourages a critical and reflective understanding of the nature of mental illness, but within a frame and reference entirely of the students own interpretation. This flexible approach to curriculum and pedagogy places the archived records as a very personal source for learning, recognising the existing strengths of students, while transferring ownership and definition of academic and personal outcomes to the individual and the group. This model also challenges the 'traditional lead' role of the tutor including place, pace and space of learning and teaching while offering progression routes into employment and higher education.