Baywide Community Mental Health Team’s Open Dialogue expertise recognised internationally
Our Baywide Community Mental Health Team is gaining international recognition for its work in embedding Open Dialogue.
Keith Bryant, Chief Executive Officer of the Open Dialogue Centre in Australia, visited Wonford House recently to learn more about our experiences with Open Dialogue and the impact it has had on both colleagues and the people supported by our Baywide Team.
He also heard more about our contribution to the national ODDESSI trial, in which we were one of only five trusts to take part and shared how Open Dialogue is being used in Australia, including at schools, youth homelessness services and in regional communities.
During his visit, Keith met with our Chief Executive Phill Mantay, Colm Owens (Medical Director for the Devon Mental Health, Learning Disability and Neurodiversity Provider Collaborative), Sara Traynor (Expert by Experience Lead for the Collaborative), and Tracy Lang, one of our Experts by Experience who has played a key part in the ODDESSI trial here in Devon.
The Baywide team were instrumental in the Devon-wide Peer-supported Open Dialogue Conference earlier this year.
Our expertise is now in such high demand that Tilly Read, Clinical Practice Lead for Baywide CMHT and the Open Dialogue Team, will be taking a sabbatical to co-facilitate an open dialogue training course in Melbourne later this year with Keith's organisation.
Looking ahead, Tracy, Tilly and Sara are currently developing a proposal for a commercial Open Dialogue training offer aimed at other NHS organisations. If successful, this initiative could help fund further training opportunities for DPT colleagues.
Sara said: "We've seen first-hand the impact Open Dialogue can have - not just for the people we support, but for the way teams work together and communicate. It's exciting to see our learning being shared internationally, and we're hopeful that new training opportunities will allow more of our colleagues to benefit from this approach."
The results of the ODDESSI trial are due to be presented at the Dialogical Conference in Finland on 29 August. If you're interested in finding out more or watching the session where results will be shared, visit the Lapland University of Applied Sciences website.