Outcome evaluation in mh systems (non-clinical) work

Hi,

I just found this board and hope someone can help me with a rather urgent request (in terms of my time line).

I work as a consultant in community mental health. For the purpose of this post I will briefly describe one piece of the work we do (there are five of us). We work with groups, often mental health service providers, or people trying to start new services, to try to improve those services. For example, we might develop and implement evaluations, user satisfaction surveys, do team building, help to develop partnership between stakeholder groups (usually service providers and consumer/survivors), etc. I can list many other examples if anyone is interested. A big part of the focus of this part of our work is on helping services to be better, more responsive, and to more actively and meaningfully involve c/s's in the planning, delivery, and evaluation of mh services.

We have recently moved to an outcome assessment model of evaluation and are wondering (first)if there is anyone else out there doing similar kinds of work, and (second) how they have applied outcome assessment, especially with regard to information for funders. We have a great deal of anecdotal evidence supporting the contention that our work has impact on the quality of mh services. We are also trying to link that to impact on c/s's directly.

Any information would be much appreciated. I can be emailed directly at rclamen@crct.org as well. If it's not too much trouble, I would really appreciate direct email or at least an alert that there is a post here. Only because of my timeline and the difficulty of checking back quickly and frequently.

Thanks in advance,

Rena Clamen

• Addendum to post, Outcome Eval. in mh systems work by Rena Clamen, 10/7/98
• resources by Ellen Dornelas, 10/15/98