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.

Examines the nature of social support and how it can be enhanced, focusing on relationships between service users and supporters

About the Author
Jonathan Leach is a lecturer in mental health at The Open University, UK, and chair of Tandem, a mental health befriending organisation in Oxford, UK, where he lives. He is past Chair of the UK's National Vocational Rehabilitation Association and formerly lectured on a post-graduate disability and employment course at City University in London. Having previously spent ten years working in a mental health and employment voluntary sector organisation and another three years researching the support needs of students with mental health problems, Jonathan has had a long and practical interest in social aspects of mental health.

Reviews
This accessible and persuasive book explores the meaning and value of both informal and organised social support for people with mental health problems. Written from the author's long experience in both voluntary and academic work, it is both a powerful and practical advocate for social support to be viewed as of equal significance as medical and psychological interventions, and is of direct relevance to everyone working in statutory and voluntary mental health services. -- John Hall, clinical psychologist and Professor of Mental Health at Oxford Brookes University
Getting the basics right about responding to people with a psychiatric diagnosis is vital. In this book Jonathan Leach makes the eminently sensible case that one of those needs is for human association. Social support reduces our risk of developing mental health problems and it increases our luck of recovery when and if they develop. A clear and well written case is made for the reader that social support not clever technologies should be a high priority in mental health policy. -- David Pilgrim, Professor of Health and Social Policy, University of Liverpool
Social support is essential for our mental health and must not be ignored in the rush towards psychological or pharmacological explanations for mental distress. This important book should be read by every health and social care student to ensure social perspectives are retained in our understanding of mental health. -- Martin Webber, Director of the International Centre for Mental Health Social Research, University of York
Jonathan Leach's clearly written book is an important contribution in helping us to understand the value of social support, its complex meanings, and how it can be provided in practice. It should be read by all mental health professionals. -- Philip Thomas, former Consultant Psychiatrist, Bradford District Care Trust, and Honorary Visiting Professor, University of Bradford
Leach draws on his years of experience providing support for people with mental health problems that did not sit comfortably within a medical or psychotherapeutic paradigm yet seem to be very important for mental health. He uses ideas from sociology-his first field-but warns that this is not a sociology of mental health handbook. His topics include rediscovering social support, social aspects of mental health and distress, the importance of supportive relationships, support in the workplace, and making it happen. -- ProtoView



Book Information
ISBN 9781849055185
Author Jonathan Leach
Format Paperback
Page Count 208
Imprint Jessica Kingsley Publishers
Publisher Jessica Kingsley Publishers
Weight(grams) 310g
Dimensions(mm) 229mm * 156mm * 13mm