The Creation of “We Are Neighbours”: Participatory Research and Recovery (original) (raw)
Related papers
BMC Public Health
Background: In Canada, public housing programs are an important part of governmental strategies to fight poverty and public exclusion. The Flash on my neighborhood! project is a four-year multiphase community-based participatory action research strategy currently implemented in six public housing developments (n = 1009 households) across the province of Québec, Canada. The goal is to reduce the mental health disparities faced by these public housing tenants compared to the general population, while identifying which environmental and policy changes are needed to turn public housing settings into healthier environments. Methods: The protocol involves three successive, interconnected phases: 1) Strengths and needs assessment, including community outreach and recruitment of tenants to collaborate as peer researchers, an exploratory qualitative component (photovoice), a systematic neighborhood observation, and a household survey; 2) Action plan development, including a community forum and interactive capacity-building and discussion sessions; 3) Action plan implementation and monitoring. The entire intervention is evaluated using a mixed-method design, framed within a multiple case study perspective. Throughout the project and particularly in the evaluation phase, data will be collected to record a) contextual factors (tenants' previous experience of participation, history of public housing development, etc.); b) activities that took place and elements from the action plan that were implemented; and c) short-and mediumterm outcomes (objective and perceived improvements in the quality of the residential setting, both physically and in terms of mental health and social capital). Discussion: The study will provide unprecedented evidence-based information on the key ingredients of a collective intervention process associated with the increased collective empowerment and positive mental health of public housing tenants.
Housing and Support Narratives of People Experiencing Mental Health Issues: Making My Place, My Home
Frontiers in Psychiatry
Background: Choice, control, privacy, and security are widely reported housing preferences of mental health consumers, are associated with improved well-being and greater housing satisfaction, and are important for recovery. This paper describes housing and neighborhood experiences from a larger qualitative study that sought to learn with people experiencing mental health issues about their everyday lives in an Australian urban community. Methods: A participatory approach to health research informed this study. A participatory reference group, including four people with consumer perspective knowledge and experience of mental health issues and four mental health practitioners with service provider and researcher perspectives, worked together to design and implement this study over a 4-year period. Thirty-nine participants were recruited, including 18 women and 21 men living in metropolitan Melbourne and receiving community mental health care for ongoing mental health issues related mainly to either psychotic or affective disorders. Participants each took part in one to three interviews or a focus group. The data were transcribed and analyzed using narrative and thematic analytic strategies, underpinned by reflective discussions with the participatory reference group.
American Journal of Community Psychology, 2013
This research focused on the relationships between a national team and five project sites across Canada in planning a complex, community intervention for homeless people with mental illness called At Home/Chez Soi, which is based on the Housing First model. The research addressed two questions: (a) what are the challenges in planning? and (b) what factors that helped or hindered moving project planning forward? Using qualitative methods, 149 national, provincial, and local stakeholders participated in key informant or focus group interviews. We found that planning entails not only intervention and research tasks, but also relational processes that occur within an ecology of time, local context, and values. More specifically, the relationships between the national team and the project sites can be conceptualized as a collaborative process in which national and local partners bring different agendas to the planning process and must therefore listen to, negotiate, discuss, and compromise with one another. A collaborative process that involves powersharing and having project coordinators at each site helped to bridge the differences between these two stakeholder groups, to find common ground, and to accomplish planning tasks within a compressed time frame. While local context and culture pushed towards unique adaptations of Housing First, the principles of the Housing First model provided a foundation for a common approach across sites and interventions. The implications of the findings for future planning and research of multi-site, complex, community interventions are noted.
Social participation, housing, and people with a psychiatric disability
2008
This paper is based on research which considered intersectoral collaboration and community participation in policy processes for housing people with a psychiatric disability,across a period of mental health reform in South Australia (2000-2005). As part of this study, participants were asked about problems and ideal solutions for housing this population group. This article will report on themes emerging from the responses of participants. Key problems in housing identified included access to housing and community based support resources, social isolation and a lack of community engagement, community and neighbourhood stigma, and the skills and attitudes of support workers. The findings had important implications for programmes and strategies. They highlighted the importance of ongoing disability support co-ordinated with housing; training for professionals working with people with psychiatric disability; working with local neighbourhoods and media strategies; developing ‘citizenship goals’ in service frameworks; developing a sense of community amongst residents and ensuring that housing is not geographically isolated.
Housing First and Photovoice: Transforming Lives, Communities, and Systems
American journal of community psychology, 2018
This article presents findings from a community-based participatory evaluation of a Housing First program on the Island of O'ahu. In this study, clients in a Housing First program used Photovoice to evaluate the program and to advocate for progressive housing policies. Written together by members of the Housing First Photovoice group, this collaborative article describes the outcomes from both the Housing First program and the Photovoice project and demonstrates the ways in which participatory program evaluations can interact with client-driven programs like Housing First to produce a cumulative, transformative impact. Findings suggest that community psychologists hoping to re-engage with community mental health systems through enacting transformative change should consider taking a community-based participatory approach to program evaluation because increased client voice in community mental health programs and their evaluations can have far-reaching, transformative impacts for...
Housing for People with Serious Mental Illness: A Comparison of Values and Research
American Journal of Community Psychology, 2007
This paper discusses issues in the development of collaborative efforts among stakeholders in a community housing and support system dedicated to people with serious mental illness. Whereas community development efforts directed at localities are more common, the increasing recognition of the system-level barriers facing marginalized groups requires community development efforts that are relevant to communities of stakeholders in service systems. The paper draws on work conducted by the authors to understand, to evaluate, and to support the development of a system of housing dedicated to people with serious mental illness in Ontario. Although these projects were not intended as community development, they have uncovered issues that are likely to arise in a community development effort in this context.