Co-Productive Evaluation Development
Together with experts by experience, a co-productive evaluation framework for the Swiss Recovery Colleges is being developed. Participatory workshops ensure the inclusion of diverse perspectives and shared decision-making.
Factsheet
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Schools involved
School of Health Professions
School of Social Work - Institute(s) Nursing
- Research unit(s) Innovation in the Field of Mental Health and Psychiatric Care
- Strategic thematic field Thematic field "Caring Society"
- Funding organisation BFH
- Duration (planned) 01.01.2026 - 31.12.2026
- Head of project Nora Christa Ambord
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Project staff
Dr. Christian Burr
Sabine Rühle Andersson
Melina Hasler
Roberto Cassanello
Renata Bleichenbacher
Stephanie Kay Ventling
Flavio Trolese - Partner Swiss Recovery Colleges
- Keywords Swiss Recovery Colleges, Co-Productive Evaluation, Participation, Experiential Knowledge, Experts by Experience, Co-Research, Mental Health, Social Participation, Inclusive Education, Community-Based
Situation
Recovery Colleges are community-based education centres that promote dialogue on mental health between those affected, professionals, relatives and other interested parties. They provide spaces for discussion outside clinical settings and thus aim to contribute to reducing the stigma associated with mental illness. At the same time, they create meeting places that strengthen interpersonal relationships and promote social participation and shared responsibility. A key feature is the principle of co-production: people with personal experience of mental health crisis and people with professional experience develop and design the programmes together, contributing their experiential knowledge and professional expertise as equal partners. There are currently seven recovery colleges in German-speaking and French-speaking Switzerland, most of which were founded in the last five years. So far, there has been no jointly supported evaluation concept that corresponds to the participatory values of recovery colleges. Existing evaluation approaches are often designed top-down and thus run the risk of insufficiently incorporating key experiential and practical perspectives. Against this background, there is a need for a co-productively developed, practical evaluation concept that meets both scientific requirements and the values of the recovery colleges, thus forming a viable basis for subsequent evaluation.
Course of action
The evaluation concept is developed in several participatory workshops with an evaluation committee. This committee is made up of people with and without personal experience of mental illness and brings together relevant perspectives from Recovery College practice and evaluation development. The workshops are designed to systematically incorporate different perspectives and jointly develop viable decisions. The methodological basis is the community-based participatory research approach, which aims to ensure the equal participation of all those involved. The process of designing the evaluation follows iterative cycles of planning, action, observation and reflection in the workshops, in line with the action research approach. The workshops also serves as a steering and reflection tool, in which interim results are discussed, evaluated and further developed. In this way, an evaluation concept is to be developed that continuously responds to the perspectives, experiences and needs of those involved. This approach emphasises situational dependence, flexibility and ongoing feedback as central features of participatory research and contributes significantly to the practical relevance and connectivity of the concept.
Looking ahead
The further development of Swiss Recovery Colleges based on a joint examination of goals, values and quality standards can help to establish co-productive evaluation in the long term and strengthen the scientific foundation of Swiss Recovery Colleges. A stronger scientific foundation can support the further development and embedding in society of Swiss Recovery Colleges. The evaluation concept developed can also serve as a basis for future political discussions and as a model approach for participatory evaluation research.
