Coming up with innovations in mental health is not necessarily about inventing a new service, but rather incorporating improvements and ensuring existing quality, says David Pilgrim, lead evaluator of NESTA's Innovations in Mental Health scheme.
Ten inspiring pilot projects have been chosen as part of NESTA's Innovations in Mental Health initiative. The projects, funded through the call targeted at frontline workers, service users and carers, address a wide range of challenging issues found within contemporary mental health care provision, and will be delivered with expert support from the Mental Health Foundation, Mind and Rethink.
In funding these pilots, NESTA's aim is twofold - first of all to achieve a positive outcome for the service users and workers involved in each project; and secondly to gain a greater understanding of the factors present in supporting successful projects from the frontline to scale.
This will be measured through a comprehensive evaluation process. Understanding what makes a project successful, as well as the barriers that can get in the way of growth, will hopefully lead to more widespread successes in the future.
Leading this valuable work of discovery and evaluation is David Pilgrim PhD, Professor of Mental Health Policy, Department of Social Work, University of Central Lancashire. More than twenty years research experience, and a particular interest in social innovation, leave him ideally placed to contextualise the individual project findings in a meaningful way.
David Pilgrim is joined in his work by, amongst others, Helen Spandler PhD, a senior research fellow also based at the University of Lancashire.
The term 'Mental Health' is extremely broad - covering psychiatric patients at one end of the spectrum, to people taking preventative steps to increase their well-being at the other. One thing all these groups have in common is a feeling of dissatisfaction with the status quo.
As David Pilgrim explains, "There's this feeling with mental health in particular that things could always be a lot better. And that's the stimulus for innovation. Sometimes it's no more than expecting that an organisation should do what it says it will do.
"Frontline workers who are doing their best often get frustrated that the rhetoric of their organisation isn't being delivered. It's not necessarily about inventing a new service, but rather incorporating improvements and ensuring the quality of the existing service."
A few of the chosen pilot projects are being delivered within an NHS framework, so it follows that evaluating their impact, will involve reflecting on the state of the current National Health Service.
"In the past, I have worked with groups trying to get similar mental health care projects off the ground," David Pilgrim says, "so I'm very familiar with the barriers and difficulties they've faced. A major part of our work will be investigating the climate such groups are operating in. So some of our evaluation will reflect how the NHS functions, and what that means in the long term."
With such a broad range of pilot projects, a flexible evaluation methodology is essential. As David Pilgrim explains, "each of the projects is on a different scale, and there are different issues they're trying to address. There is also the different local context to consider. So it's important that we adopt an approach that is both flexible and adaptable - rather than use a standard template and impose it across the board.
"In very simple terms this involves an understanding of processes within local contexts, and an appreciation of the local barriers in place. We'll collect opinions from different stakeholders - often the insight and feedback offered is informed by the role people have within any given situation."
David adds, "The evaluation is an extremely exciting project in its own right. It will have to be innovative in the way that results of each individual project are measured and what that means overall."
Although the evaluation will include a detailed analysis of each project and its relative merits, the team are also looking to understand what exactly contributes to successful innovation in its widest terms.
David Pilgrim explains, "We are looking for the broader messages around success, and also the obstacles that prevent it from happening. We are really trying to understand systemic change or stasis - rather than focus on individual project wins. We'll be asking whether there are any common strands that appear in the more successful projects.
"Identifying the patterns that arise across all ten projects will provide the valuable meta-learning about the mechanics of innovation. This can then be applied elsewhere in public services.
"At the end, we hope to be able to present a very rich and realistic picture of this field, leading to a clear indication of where to go next."
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