Transforming experience into research: My journey with the Elly Jansen Award.

Ellie Wildbore is a Lived Experience Researcher and Educator with experience working within the NHS and beyond. In 2023, Ellie won the Elly Jansen Award runner-up prize for her article, From Little Acorns, Mighty Oaks Grow: The Acorn Programme, 4 years on, which examined the long-term impact of being part of a therapeutic community for staff and service users four years after the closure of the programme.

Here, Ellie shares her experience of being part of the Elly Jansen Award and the opportunities it has opened up for her.

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I am someone with lived experience of being in a Therapeutic Community (TC) (I was a member of the Acorn programme in 2016-2017). I work as a lived experience research and education ambassador in mental health. For me, the experience of living in a TC for a year was hugely impactful. It didn’t fix my life, but brought about significant changes, including finding a career in mental health education and research, after not being able to work for many years due to the severity of my mental illness.

In 2022, interested in the impact that being on the Acorn programme had had on my life, and saddened by the closure of the unit not long after I left, I decided to embark on a small research study into the long-term impact of being part of the Acorn programme - for staff and service users.

I initially wrote this up into a research poster, which won an award for originality and novelty at the British and Irish Group for the Study of Personality Disorders (BIGSPD) conference 2022. I also presented my project in a couple of other contexts, including the Community of Communities.

It was after one of these presentations that the inaugural Elly Jansen Award for articles on therapeutic communities was brought to my attention.

I was encouraged from various angles to write up my project into a proper research article, which at the time felt very daunting. Although I worked in research and was part of co-authoring other publications, I had not written an article of my own since my abysmal attempt at a dissertation at university over a decade before (lets not talk about the fact that my dissertation mark was capped at 40 (just scraping a pass) because I accidentally plagiarised twice as no one had ever taught me how to reference properly!)

Somehow, despite having done the original research whilst living in a mental health step-down unit, and the deadline of the Elly Jansen Award falling during an admission to general hospital, I managed to write an article and get it submitted from my hospital bed.

So imagine my surprise when a couple of months later I received the news that I was to receive the runner-up prize for the very first Elly Jansen award! Although the prize money of £500 was incredibly helpful, it was the opportunities that it opened up for me, including being published, that had the biggest impact on me.

Ellie receiving her Award

For someone working in a lived experience capacity in research, without anything more than an undergraduate degree and no academic training or support, it is incredibly difficult to access things that other researchers might take for granted. Access to resources, including journals, not being able to afford publication, not being taken seriously for what we do…the list goes on.

Coming runner-up in the award has opened up more opportunities to write and collaborate on research in the therapeutic community sphere.

I’ve presented my paper countless times - both inside the therapeutic community world and beyond- and I’ve been on podcasts. I’m now a member of the Elly Jansen Award committee. All valuable experiences and opportunities which wouldn’t have existed for me without the platform of the award.

It not only gave me the impetus and confidence to actually write an article in the first place, but it also made me more visible in an area of practice and research that I am passionate about.

I don’t just feel like a service user, but someone whose thoughts and ideas are valued and sought after.

I’d really encourage people with lived experience of TCs to consider entering the Elly Jansen Award. There is support and guidance available if you struggle with academic writing or if English isn’t your first language, and you can always ask if you could reach out to a previous winner (several of whom have written from a lived experience perspective) and get some tips and ideas.