Grant: Planning and Dissemination Grant - Institute Community Support

The purpose of this planning grant is to bring together a group of decision-makers, knowledge users and researchers to design a regional evaluation of Early Psychosis Intervention (EPI) programs. EPI was developed as an innovative approach to bring hope and recovery to individuals experiencing early stages of psychosis. Psychosis is a symptom of disorders, such as schizophrenia, that can lead to an arrest in development of the skills necessary for achieving independent living. Psychosis requires early intervention and minimal duration of untreated illness for the best outcomes. The Ontario EPI Program Standards were released in 2011, after most of the EPI programs were implemented and adapted to local context. After the release, the Ontario network of EPI providers undertook a province-wide survey on selected program features and adherence to specific service components. Ontario needs to move beyond stakeholder surveys of implementation support needs to measuring actual implementation and impact. We will use this planning and dissemination grant to plan a case-based evaluation of EPI programs. The planning process will involve a series of stakeholder consultations using videoconferencing and one stakeholder in-person meeting. We will incorporate a youth (with lived experience) or family member consultant in our stakeholder meetings. We will also include strong representation from northern and rural areas of Ontario, regions that have unique service needs that have been largely overlooked by health research. The project team has extensive experience as EPI clinicians and content experts, mental health policy and services researchers, and decision-makers. The members of the project team are also members of provincial and international EPI networks, mental health planning tables, and knowledge exchange networks. We will build on these established relationships to plan our application for a CIHR-PHSI grant application in 2015.