Using the Internet to integrate peer stories and self-management resources into mental health services

The Self-Management and Recovery Technology (SMART) project is a Victorian government-funded research program being conducted at the National eTherapy Centre in conjunction with five mental health organisations in Victoria. This is a research program to develop and trial therapeutic resources for use across clinical and community managed mental health sectors. It involves developing an online portal with materials promoting self-management skills and personal recovery, which can be used by mental health workers in their interactions with consumers, and directly accessed by consumers themselves. These materials will make particular use of videos featuring peers talking about their own recovery, together with information and online exercises, organised into modules on recovery-related topics. The system will also facilitate connection between different users of the system through commenting functions and a consumer-moderated forum. The development phase of the project has involved focus group consultations with mental health service consumers and workers on the potential use of technology within mental health services and collaborative development and pilot of materials. We describe this research program and report on the development phase.