The trials and triumphs of co-producing an evaluation plan: A principles-focused evaluation

Recovery Colleges are mental health-oriented education programs that are rooted in principles of peer support and co-production. Co-production, in this context, involves people with lived experience of mental health and addiction challenges and people with other forms of expertise (e.g., mental health professionals, administrators, and researchers) collaborating on the design and actualization of programs and initiatives. Despite co-production being a central feature of Recovery Colleges, very few Recovery College evaluations appear to be co-produced. In addition, there is a lack of research that evaluates the quality of the co-production processes in developing evaluations. The Recovery College at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, called the Collaborative Learning College, established an Evaluation Subcommittee with the goal of co-designing and implementing an evaluation plan for the program. In response to the dearth of literature on co-producing Recovery College evaluations and the quality of such collaborative processes, the Evaluation Subcommittee conducted a principles-focused evaluation to assess the quality of their process of co-producing an evaluation plan. All members of the Evaluation Subcommittee collaboratively developed and agreed on three principles that they felt were most important in their co-production process. Using a self-narrative approach, each member then produced a reflection on the importance of the principles, the degree to which the committee adhered to them, and the impact. Finally, members engaged in collaborative thematic analysis and co-wrote this manuscript. The results of this study outline member’s purposes for joining the Evaluation Subcommittee, the strengths and challenges related to embodying the collaborative principles, and the associated impacts. The findings demonstrate the value of co-producing health education evaluations with people with lived experience and highlight important lessons learned through the Evaluation Subcommittee’s collaborative process, specifically related to mitigating the impacts of power imbalances. These lessons can be valuable for others to consider in their co-production processes. Recovery Colleges are mental health-oriented education programs that are rooted in principles of peer support and co-production. This means that people with lived experience co-create programs alongside those with professional expertise. Each program must use feedback to determine the program’s quality through an evaluation process. While co-production is central to Recovery Colleges, few evaluations involve co-production and little research evaluates the quality of co-production processes in developing evaluations. The Recovery College at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, called the Collaborative Learning College, established an Evaluation Subcommittee to co-produce an evaluation plan for the program. To assess the quality of their co-production process, the Evaluation Subcommittee used a principles-focused evaluation, which looks at specific principles to assess how well a program or project aligns with them. The Evaluation Subcommittee developed three principles that were most important in their co-production process. Then, members produced reflections on the principles’ importance, how well the committee followed them, and their impact. Members identified themes across the reflections and wrote this manuscript together. The findings identified members’ purposes for joining the Evaluation Subcommittee, such as collaboration, teaching and learning from others, and creating an evaluation process consistent with the Recovery College’s values. When discussing challenges, several responses acknowledged the differences in power experienced within healthcare and educational spaces. The findings demonstrate the value of co-producing health education evaluations with people with lived experience and highlight important lessons that others can consider in their co-production processes.

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