Facilitating a Role-Play
Your job is to:
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Make sure everyone understands what’s going on and the purpose of the session
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Encourage the Observers to give feedback
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Make sure the key messages are shared with medical students (raise any key points
not bought up by the observers)
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Encourage Invite discussion from the medical students on these key issues
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Make sure the session runs on time
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Make sure both evaluation sheets are completed
Step by step guide
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5)
Set up the room
Introduce yourself, the project and invite the Observers to introduce themselves
Explain why you are here and the purpose of the session (not to test history taking)
Give clear instructions on how the session will run (2 teams, Times outs etc.)
Ask for a volunteer from the ‘interviewers’ team and Read out the Medical students
brief
6) If a time-out is called invite discussion from the interviewing team and the
observers- pick out some of the key messages that are relevant and ask open
questions relating to these
7) Bring the role play to a close, invite any remaining feedback from the actors and
observers, raise any key messages that have not been mentioned so far
8) Invite the teams to swap over, ask for a new volunteer, and read the next medical
students brief
9) Repeat 6 and 7 above
10) Summarise any general points and key messages
11) Give out evaluation forms and collect back in
How to Facilitate a Role-Play
1) Set Up the room
Before the medical students arrive, arrange the chairs in a suitable position so that
everyone can see the role play. Make sure the room is comfortable, is the room too
hot or cold? Will the sun be in anyone’s eyes?
2) Introduce yourself and invite the Observers to introduce themselves
You should say something about your experience of mental health issues, even if you
just say that you are a service user or x service user. Say that you are an involvement
worker with rethink’s Time to Change project and will be facilitating today’s session
3) Explain why you are here and the purpose of the session
Remind them of the lecture about stigma and mental health and personal
presentations they saw recently. 1 in 4 people will seek help for a mental health
issue in their lifetime. Explain that stigma and discrimination affects people with
mental health issues so much that they say it is worse than the symptoms they
experience.
Rethink have identified that not only are medical students a key audience because of
the contact you will have with people with mental health issues, but because you are
an influential group of people and we are inviting you to help spread our messages.
People with mental health issues also experience more physical health problems and
on average those with a diagnosis of a severe mental health problem die ten years
younger. This means that whichever field of medicine you chose to go into you are
going to come across people with mental health issues, and how you respond to
them can dramatically affect their recovery.
Today’s session is a unique opportunity for you to ask us as people who have used
mental health services how we want to be treated. Between us we have lots of
experience and please use this as an opportunity to use our experience and
knowledge to improve yours- feel free to ask us any questions.
This session is not to test your psychiatric history taking, but is about developing
your communication skills with patients.
4) Give instructions on how the session will run
Explain that we will be using professional actors to play patients, and this is an
opportunity for them to practice interacting with patients, and get constructive
feedback on their performance. Say that there will be two Role-plays and that we
are going to split the group into two teams:
‘Interviewing/doctors team’ between you need to decide how to best get
information from the patient the best course of action. Decide who is going to first
take the role of the doctor. Any of you can call a ‘time out’ at any time to discuss
what to do next and to swap over the person playing the doctor.
‘Observing team’ we need you to observe the patient and the doctor, and
make notes on their performance then offer feedback at the end.
Assign one involvement worker to each team and explain that they are there to help
and offer advice. (make sure that they are sat embedded in the teams) Explain that
after this we will discuss how it went and the teams will then swap over for the 2nd
role-play.
Time outs Explain that anyone in the ‘interviewing team’ can call a time out- to ask
advice from their team members, to make a suggestion to the volunteer in the hot
seat or to swap over the person in the hot seat. Make sure everyone understands
the purpose of the time-outs: for students to discuss tactics in interviewing the
patient. Facilitators should use open questions to help them do this and observers
may comment here (for example when discussing getting Jane’s father to leave, a
carer may explain how it feels to be asked to leave the room). Time outs can also be
used to give brief and relevant feedback to the student in the hot seat.
5) Ask for a volunteer from the ‘interviewers’ team and Read out the Medical
students brief
If no-one volunteer then pick someone and try to do this in a light-hearted way (for
example if someone is yawning I might say “I think you should do it just to keep you
awake!”). Ask the volunteer what their name is and repeat it so that you can refer to
him/her and feedback can be addressed to them personally. Read the medical
students brief to them give them a minute to confer with the team while you check
the actors are ready- then ask the volunteer to bring their patient in.
6) If a time-out is called invite discussion from the interviewing team and the other
involvement workers
Pick out some of the key messages that are relevant and ask open questions relating
to these (see ‘Raising key messages’ section). Invite the observers to give feedback
to the student in the hot seat, but try to keep this fairly brief, to-the-point and
relevant to the discussion.
7) Bring the role play to a close, invite any remaining feedback from the students,
involvement workers etc., raise any key messages that have not been mentioned
so far
If an actor has left the room invite them back in. Ask the students how they thought
it went. Allow the involvement workers acting as observers to feedback first, if any
of the key messages have not been raised by another involvement worker, try and
find a way of working these into the discussion, ask the involvement workers open
ended questions to draw these issues out.
8) Invite the teams to swap over, ask for a new volunteer, and read the next medical
students brief
Explain that we will do the same again with a different role play; explain the time
outs again to the new ‘interviewing team’ and get a volunteer.
9) Repeat 6 and 7 above
10) Summarise any general points and key messages
Pick out any key points that came out in both role-plays, emphasise again how
common mental health problems are and how they address people will affect the
outcome of the consultation. Thank the medical students for their time.
11) Give out evaluation forms and collect back in
Explain that it would be helpful if they completed a short evaluation form for us to
find out what they think of the session, then explain the IOP are evaluating the
impact of the project nationally and ask them to complete the questionnaire for
them.