Evaluation of a new recovery college: delivering health outcomes and cost efficiencies via an educational approach

an article by Katie Kay and George Edgley (Pennine Care NHS Foundation Trust, Ashton-under-Lyne, UK) published in Mental Health and Social Inclusion Volume 23 Issue 1 (2019)

Abstract

Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to evaluate cost efficiencies and health outcomes after one academic year of course delivery, in a recovery college.

Design/methodology/approach
The paper used service evaluation and review of data.

Findings
There is significant impact on health outcomes when standardised measures of Patient Activation Measure and Warwick–Edinburgh Mental Wellbeing Scale were completed pre- and post-intervention, with indications of possible financial efficiencies identified within secondary care mental health pathways.

Research limitations/implications
The current evaluation sample is only representative of community mental health populations rather than broader communities. However, indications are that the model is effective from a wider public health perspective (early intervention/prevention) in producing significant health outcomes in terms of improved wellbeing and increased levels of activation/self-management. More in-depth research collaboration with an academic institution is now required.

Practical implications
There is an implication that the recovery college needs to be fully embedded within the mental health pathway as part of the core offer. This would require significant service redesign and culture change within the organisation.

Social implications
There is a need to continue to work with other statutory service providers, key stakeholders, voluntary and community sectors to embed the college with wider public health services and ensure a holistic approach across local communities and the whole health pathway.

Originality/value
Although the model is based on the widely recognised national recovery college model, it has moved away from the usual boundaries of access only being for those attached to secondary care mental health services to a more holistic and integrative approach of offering access to the whole population. Social value is indicated in the ownership and co-production of the model by the collaboration of student expertise, experts by experience and experts by expertise. The co-produced integrated volunteering and work pathway offers positive and cost-efficient health outcomes from a co-designed and co-delivered educational approach.

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Knowing what we are talking about: why evidence doesn't always travel

an article by Nancy Cartwright (Durham University, UK) published in Evidence & Policy: A Journal of Research, Debate and Practice Volume 9 Number 1 (January 2013 )

Abstract

When is a well-established study result that a given policy/programme/treatment produced a given outcome in a particular study setting ('there') evidence that that policy/programme/treatment will produce that outcome in a new setting ('here')?

This paper insists that 'there' and 'here' be firmly distinguished and offers in answer that we must have evidence that two further facts obtain:

1. that the policy can play the same causal role widely (widely enough to cover both here and there) and
2. that a complete set of the support factors necessary for the policy to operate here are present in some individuals here.

Full text (PDF 16pp)

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Validating the Future Career Autobiography as a Measure of Narrative Change

an article by Mark C. Rehfuss (Old Dominion University, Norfolk, VA, USA) and Annamaria Di Fabio (University of Florence, Italy) published in Journal of Career Assessment Volume 20 Number 4 (November 2012)

Abstract

This study examined the validity of the Future Career Autobiography (FCA; Rehfuss, 2009), a qualitative instrument designed to capture change or stability in individuals’ life and occupational narratives across time as a result of narrative career interventions.

Italian female entrepreneurs (N = 82) were randomly assigned into either an experimental group (n = 40) that received career counselling consistent with the Life Design paradigm or a control group (n = 42) that received no intervention.

The results indicated a significant narrative movement or change in the post-FCAs of the experimental group, moving from general to more specific life and occupational themes, while the control group’s pre- and post-FCAs remained similar across the same time period.

In addition, word count analysis revealed expanded narrative expression within the experimental group’s post-FCAs.

Together, these findings support the validity of this qualitative instrument.

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