So where did this Prospect idea all begin?
EUFAMI was founded in 1993 in a time when the role of the family carer was ignored, and their needs where not considered by anyone.
EUFAMI brought together national Family Associations in Europe and together they began to bring about change at the European and National levels.
A first task for EUFAMI was to survey the existing national legislations in terms of mental illness and assess the needs of the family caregivers. Gathering this information was essential as it did not exist at the time.
One of the needs voiced by the family caregivers across Europe was the need for self-help support and coping skills. EUFAMI started a Family Empowerment Working Group and this group searched for existing options. Contact was made with one Ken Alexander in Australia. He was a scientist and a family member specializing in family education as a volunteer for the Schizophrenia Fellowship in Victoria, Australia. From these experiences he published a book in 1991 called “Understanding and Coping with Schizophrenia: 14 Principles for the Relatives”.
EUFAMI invited him to speak at a seminar in Ireland in 1998 and later to deliver a coping skills training in the Netherlands in 2000. The family members who participated in this training decided that this is what family caregivers needed: capacity building, training for empowerment and coping skills to improve their resilience.
This was the origin of the Prospect idea as we know it today.
EUFAMI was able to secure a grant from the European Commission’s Leonardo Programme in 1991 and this opened the door to developing not only training for family caregivers, but also for people with lived experience and health and social care professionals. The Prospect Training Programmes were co-formulated and co-developed in 2004, by a multi-stakeholder working group made up of over 40 representatives from 14 EUFAMI Member Organisations and in collaboration with Sahlgrenska Universitetssjukhuset (Sweden) and the Royal College of Psychiatrists (United Kingdom).
During the meetings, the 3 stakeholder group participants would sit together at breakfast, lunch, dinner and coffee breaks, and they realised that “together they could achieve more than alone” which resulted in also developing the Prospect Common Ground Training.
It was an exciting time. The idea of sitting people with lived experience, with family and friend carers and health and social care professionals in a safe and inclusive environment where they could take part in a collective reflection did not exist! At the time, it was truly an innovative idea, and everyone was highly motivated even though it was not easy to see what the results would be.
Prospect resulted from a need voiced by family caregivers in Europe. Their situation and what they were dealing with was totally neglected. So, Prospect provided a tool to enable a change in not only how the mental health sector viewed family carers and people with lived experience but also in taking them into account.
In 2004 the content and format of the 3 Prospect Training Programmes and the Common Ground Module was finalised and Prospect Facilitator Manuals were produced
Since 2005 EUFAMI member organisations have been implementing Prospect in their own national countries.
The training programmes were successful and were still being implemented in 12 years later when it was decided that these needed updating and revising.
Financial support was established and since 2019 the Prospect Plus project got underway resulting in revised training programme content for the
- Prospect Family and Friends Training Programme
- The Prospect People with Lived Experience Training Programme
- The Prospect Health and Social Care Professionals Training Programme
- The Prospect Common Ground Training Programme
