Mental Health Systems Transformation: Recovery-Based Approaches to Participatory Planning and Evaluation

Passed in 2004, the California Mental Health Services Act (MHSA) provides increased funding, personnel, and other resources to support the expansion and transformation of the state’s mental health system.  The MHSA is guided by the following principles: 1) Wellness, Recovery, and Resiliency, 2) Client and Family Driven, 3) Community Collaboration, 4) Cultural Competence, and 5) Integrated Service Delivery.  Participatory planning and evaluation provides an approach that brings these principles into practice by building the capacity for stakeholders to plan, implement, and evaluate their own programs.  

This presentation will define promising practices to engage people with lived experience and other un- and under-served populations in the planning and design of community mental health services.  These promising practices were identified through a statewide research project to measure the effectiveness of community planning processes conducted throughout California’s public mental health system.  Through a participatory evaluation framework, people with lived experience served as research partners from evaluation planning, qualitative and quantitative data collection, data analysis and interpretation, through the identification of promising practices.

 This presentation will also describe effective outreach and recruitment strategies, facilitation techniques, and training and technical assistance to engage people with lived experience and other underrepresented groups in participatory planning and evaluation, using a case study from one California county.  This case study used a participatory evaluation process to engage a committee of people with lived experience in an iterative process to promote an accessible, welcoming, engaging, culturally relevant, and integrated service delivery environment.