UserInvolve : Developing sustainable user involvement practices in community mental health

User involvement is key in developing recovery-oriented community mental health services that integrate qualities that are important to the end-user. User involvement is further crucial for sustainable and democratic service and support systems.

A number of user involvement strategies have today been developed in the mental health sector, but long-term implementation is lacking.

This program aims to examine and develop sustainable user involvement in community mental health practice.The UserInvolve-program consists of three modules, with a total of seven underlying projects:Module I: Autonomous activities facilitating user involvementModule I explores activities in user movements that are free from the involvement of the mental health service system.

Through such popular mobilisation, service users are able to build competencies and readiness for involvement by developing a collective knowledge base and by formulating political positions.Module II: Concrete strategies for sustainable integration of user involvementModule II is core to the program.

The projects of Module II examines four concrete strategies for sustainable integration of user involvement in community mental health practice: shared decision making, peer support, user-focused monitoring and user councils.

The projects address different levels of user involvement, ranging from the individual-, to the organisational- and the systemic level.

Module III: Co-production for capacity building, longevity and research impactModule III takes an overarching approach to the knowledge generated in the program, in order to develop theory and methodology on user involvement in research and in mental health practice.

This module involves creating structures for co-production in collaboration with user organisations and community mental health representatives. A biennial conference will further strengthen translation of the knowledge generated in the program into practice.