The idea of developing the Prospect training programmes came from an EUFAMI seminar which took place in Dublin, Ireland in 1998. This seminar was attended by Dr Ken Alexander, who talked about an education course he had developed for family carers which was based on trust in and respect for their knowledge and experience. The course examined coping principles which supported carers to apply these when dealing with the severe mental illness for their loved ones.
The EUFAMI members who participated at this seminar, decided to develop training materials to enable coping skills, to empower themselves and to improve the situation of their family life.
Many discussions and consultations with different organisations took place over two years and this resulted in the PROSPECT project which commenced in 2001.
The Prospect project brought together over 40 representatives of Family and Friends, People with Self-Experience and Health and Social Care Professionals from 16 organisations in 12 European Countries.
With over 40 representatives of Family and Friends, People with Lived-Experience and Health and Social Care Professionals from 16 organisations in 12 European Countries, EUFAMI developed the Prospect training programmes.
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.
Phase I produced an updated version of the Facilitator Manual for the
- Prospect Family and Friends Training Programme
and Phase II, which is still underway, is updating the other Prospect Training Programme Facilitator Manuals:
- The Prospect People with Lived Experience Training Programme
- The Prospect Health and Social Care Professionals Training Programme
- The Prospect Common Ground Training Programme
