There are all sorts of compelling reasons for health and social care practitioners to use social media, both as part of their professional development and in their day-to-day practice.
But yesterday a Twitter conversation around the hashtag #DearMentalHealthProfessionals gave a visceral and powerful sense of the potential afforded by Twitter to be an invaluable learning tool for every mental health practitioner. You can find a storify of the tweets (so far) here.
Amanda O’Connell set up the hashtag in the morning and started tweeting messages, from her own experience, to mental health professionals. The conversation grew and spread throughout the day with all sorts of different perspectives – from negative experiences through to appreciation and many in-between.
In the NHS we spend a lot of time and effort organising events and groups and activities to ask people for their feedback and help improve services. And it is important that we do so. But there is something about the spontaneity, the starting point and the ownership of this conversation which provides a most compelling argument for any mental health practitioner to engage with Twitter as a platform to learn, share and contribute.
A big thank you and congratulations to Amanda, both for setting up the hashtag and for her encouragement when I asked if I could write a quick blog post about it 🙂
