Grant: CIHR Café Scientifique Program -Strategy for Patient Oriented Research (Ontario)

Recovery Colleges (RCs) are co-produced mental health oriented programs designed to support people's personal recovery goals. RCs have rapidly expanded across Canada, with the recognition that they can play an important role in addressing wellness needs of Canadians. Through our Café Scientifique, we will unite the Canadian RC community and members of the public to: 1) Mobilize the results of a CIHR SPOR Catalyst Grant funded project entitled Our Recovery, Our Outcomes: Co-producing an evaluation strategy of RCs; 2) Increase the profile of Canadian RCs, 3) Highlight the value in co-designing mental health education, programming, research, and evaluation, 4) Explore opportunities for collaboration and alignment in evaluation across Canadian RCs, and 5) Plan the future of the Canadian RC movement with people with lived/living expertise and those with learned expertise, ensuring equal seats at the table. The Café will consist of two half-day hybrid events. The first event will feature a presentation and community forum on what RCs are, why RCs are important to Canadians' mental wellbeing, and the importance of co-design in mental health programming, research, and evaluation to improve outcomes. The panelists will facilitate an interactive and practical workshop attended by RC stakeholders on co-designing evaluation strategies in local RC communities. The second event will focus on the current state of Canadian RCs, prompting ideas for innovation. The findings from our previous CIHR SPOR project will inform a community discussion about alignment of RC evaluation strategies across the country. The goal is to create strategies for producing evidence on the impact of RCs, with a focus on the funding, sustainability and expansion of these programs. Aligning with the spirit of this work, the planning, execution, and evaluation of this Café will be co-produced by knowledge users, researchers, RC Community of Practice members, and people with lived/living expertise.