Dr. Susanne Iris Bauer
Biography
Dr. Susanne Iris Bauer works with people with mental health issues in different settings of care, rehabilitation and homelessness since more than 20 years. Meanwhile she gives lectures in Social Work Studies, is engaged in Service User Involvement networks nationally SUI Germany and internationally Power Us The social Work Learning Partnership as well as in inter- and transdciplinary networks Navigating Knowledge Landscapes Research Network and the Centre of Research for Society and Sustainability at UAS Fulda Germany. Her actual employment at UAS Fulda, Germany allows her to do research on study success in higher education in the project H-HighFlex, HighTech & HighTouch, developing an instrumentation for effectiveness analysis. She lives in a rural area in Bavaria, Germany with her two sons and is volunteering for people with disadvantages and poverty and also is member of local councils (Pegnitz City and Bayreuth County)
Research Interest
Experiential knowledge in higher education and Peer Involvement as resources for improving quality measures
and inclusion. Destigmatization of mental health issues.
Design of Teaching- and Learning-Settings, Personal Teaching-Competency.
Abstract
"Impact of Peer Work in Social Psychiatry: Improving Quality or Missing Link for Inclusion?
Dr. Susanne Iris Bauer, University of Applied Sciences Fulda, Germany
Psychiatric diagnosis still are strongly linked with stigmatization and discrimination, it is regarded as ?ultimate
stigma? (Falk 2001), as ?second illness? (Finzen 2013), it goes along with ?stigma by association? (Goffman 1975)
and affects not only all areas of life, but also the staff (Thornicroft et al. 2009). One of the greatest threats to
shaping their lifes for those affected is the rejection from employment even though having recovered and being
able to manage residuals or episodes. Work itself is beyond providing income an existential factor for well-being
and health by affecting the socio-economic status as well as belonging and structure in daily living: protective
factors that, being missed, can in reverse lead to mental health issues.
So in this context, stigmatization still is a great problem, although there is the UN CRPD (UN 2006) which sets
agreed measures for inclusion and although there are several legislative implementations in different countries in
germany as well, that strengthen inclusion as a fundamental right.
With the european Leonardo Da Vinci Project 2005-2007 ?Experienced Involvement (EX-IN)? the problem is
addressed by professionalizing peers with mental health issues for further deployment in social psychiatric care,
gaining Peers as colleagues. In this contribution, taken from the results of a doctoral research project on
?Experienced Involvement in social psychiatric care of Germany?, challenges and chances are discussed. After a
short view on the actual employment situation of EX-IN in germany, the effects of implementation of peers as
colleagues on services, teams and colleagues, service user and EX-IN themselves are discussed and contextualized
with the claim of improving inclusion.
