aes19 International Evaluation Conference

Rachel Aston (ARTD Consultants), Amelia Walters (ARTD Consultants), Amber Provenzano (ARTD Consultants)

There is increasing recognition that consumers of mental health services and consumer researchers play an essential role in creating quality and effective research (Lammers & Happell, 2004; Hancock et al., 2012). However, little evidence exists around the engagement of consumer researchers in research and even less in evaluation (Lammers & Happell, 2004). Consumer researcher inclusion can enhance the utility, relevance, and validity of the evaluation process, conclusions, and judgements of programs, policies and initiatives that directly involve and impact on the lives of end-users.

A Victorian Primary Health Network has introduced an innovative Mental Health Stepped Care Model designed to match services with individual's and local population needs. Using this as an evaluation case example, collaboration with a consumer researcher is shown as critical to the success of the evaluation due to the design of the methodology, and in particular the emphasis on qualitative data gathering and case studies of primary health services.

Supporting the emergent literature and challenging the historical view of consumers as passive potential beneficiaries of the research and evaluation process, we propose that the active involvement of a consumer researcher in all stages of the evaluation process creates powerful mutual learning (Brosnan, 2012).

We will discuss how to practically support consumer researchers in evaluation to contribute their lived experience, to further develop their professional skills, and to foster greater ownership of evaluation for the community. We suggest minimising potential power disparities between the evaluation team and the consumer researcher, through a mentoring and allyship model (Happell et al., 2018).

Finally, we will raise important implications for the practice and wider discipline of evaluation. Progressing beyond co-design to co-evaluation, the unique contribution of consumer researchers' values and lived experience, being embedded in evaluation, leading to maximizing the utility, relevance and accuracy of the findings, will be elucidated.