Making it better: building evaluation capacity in community mental health.
This paper describes a province-wide initiative aimed at building the capacity of community mental health programs to participate in program evaluation and development by transferring knowledge, promoting discussion and developing resources. Active involvement of stakeholders and evaluation of the current capacity of the field informed the ongoing development of the initiative. Recovery served as a guiding framework for formulating and understanding community mental health outcomes. Despite the interest of the field in evaluation activities, programs were constrained by limited resources and accountability structures. Sustainability of the project would be enhanced by direct work with programs to facilitate application of Continuous Improvement.
Kirsh
Bonnie
B
Graduate Department of Rehabilitation Sciences, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario.
Krupa
Terry
T
Horgan
Salinda
S
Kelly
David
D
Carr
Sue
S
D002170:Canada; D003156:Community Mental Health Services / Q000592:standards*; D006801:Humans; D001523:Mental Disorders / Q000534:rehabilitation*; D017063:Outcome Assessment, Health Care; D015397:Program Evaluation / Q000379:methods*; D013192:Staff Development