Making people meet: volunteers' contributions to social connection for the well-being of self and others.

Purpose: Social isolation and loneliness are significant public health challenges that reduce well-being. The voluntary sector is suggested to be an important contributor in reducing loneliness and enhancing social connectedness and well-being in everyday life. This study aimed to contribute knowledge about how volunteers may help promote social connections and well-being, by exploring the experiences and perspectives of volunteers themselves.

A narrative study of mental health recovery: exploring unique, open-ended and collective processes.

: Guided by narrative theory and by use of a narrative-in-action approach, the aim of this study was to explore how mental health recovery unfolds through individuals' engagement in everyday activities.: Data were created through participant observations with four individuals while doing everyday activities, and analysed through a narrative, interpretive approach.: The findings show how mental health recovery involves unique and open-ended processes of narrative meaning-making, which unfold through an interplay between everyday activities, places and persons.

Community mental health work: Negotiating support of users' recovery.

Mental health services have changed over the past decades through an increased emphasis on deinstitutionalization and normalization, and with recovery processes situated in everyday life as a new locus of support. These changes have led to a need for new knowledge and methods concerning the provision of community mental health services. The aim of the present study was to explore how community mental health workers provide support to users, by investigating professionals' own narratives of how they work.