Therapeutic environments
People with lived experience of mental health issues co-design physical spaces, where possible. Even if significant changes to the built environment are impossible, people with lived experience participate in improvement activities related to service design.
In practice
- Co-designing safety plans that provide options for self-management and sensory moderation.
- Providing homelike calming environments where possible, including artworks and natural light.
- Providing social environments to support recovery, for example, enabling access to social networks via mobile phone, extended (24/7) visiting hours and social spaces, such as barbeque areas and activity spaces.
- Giving options about how much technology is available, for instance to minimise disturbances during periods of calm or rest.
- Providing sensory resources to support people with lived experience when they encounter heightened distress, such as music, white noise players, weighted blankets, dark spaces or natural light.
- Creating private spaces for people to sit alone and with loved ones.
Resources
- Agency for Clinical Innovation. Action Plan Template for Seclusion and Restraint Prevention Plan from a Consumer’s Perspective. Sydney: ACI; 2018
- New Jersey Department of Human Services. DMAHS Guidelines for development of comfort rooms. New Jersey; date unknown
- O'Connor N, Zantos K, Sepulveda-Flores V. Use of personal electronic devices by psychiatric inpatients: benefits, risks and attitudes of patients and staff. Australasian Psychiatry. 2018;26(3):263-266.