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Engaging people with lived experience of mental health system encounters in the design and actualization of continuing professional development initiatives for mental health professionals can have transformative systemic impacts. Yet, despite evidence that involving people with lived experience benefits mental health professional education, far less focus has been placed on how to engage people with lived experience in continuing professional development initiatives. Tensions persist regarding the role of lived experience perspectives in continuing professional development, as well as how to establish people with lived experience as partners, educators and leaders in a thoughtful way. We propose that meaningful and equitable partnerships with people with lived experience can be realized by engaging in critical reflexivity and by systematically challenging assumptions. This paper explores three topics: (1) the current state of engagement with people with lived experience in continuing professional development initiatives; (2) barriers to meaningful engagement and (3) recommendations for using critical reflexivity to support the involvement and leadership of people with lived experience in continuing professional development for mental health professionals. Patient or Public Involvement: This viewpoint manuscript was co‐designed and co‐written by people with diverse lived and learned experiences. Each author's professional roles involve meaningfully and equitably partnering with and centring the perspectives of those with lived experience of mental health system encounters. In addition, approximately half of the authorship team identifies as having lived experience of accessing the psychiatric system and/or supporting family members who are navigating challenges related to mental health. These lived and learned experiences informed the conception and writing of this article. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recovery Colleges (RCs) are education-based centres providing information, networking, and skills development for managing mental health, well-being, and daily living. A central principle is co-creation involving people with lived experience of mental health/illness and/or addictions (MHA). Identified gaps are RCs evaluations and information about whether such evaluations are co-created. We describe a co-created scoping review of how RCs are evaluated in the published and grey literature. Also assessed were: the frameworks, designs, and analyses used; the themes/outcomes reported; the trustworthiness of the evidence; and whether the evaluations are co-created. We followed Arksey and O'Malley's methodology with one important modification: "Consultation" was re-conceptualised as "co-creator engagement" and was the first, foundational step rather than the last, optional one. Seventy-nine percent of the 43 included evaluations were peer-reviewed, 21% grey literature. These evaluations represented 33 RCs located in the UK (58%), Australia (15%), Canada (9%), Ireland (9%), the USA (6%), and Italy (3%). Our findings depict a developing field that is exploring a mix of evaluative approaches. However, few evaluations appeared to be co-created. Although most studies referenced co-design/co-production, few described how much or how meaningfully people with lived experience were involved in the evaluation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Recovery colleges (RCs) are mental health centres aimed at equipping people with skills to live a meaningful life despite the presence of mental distress. Unique to them is the aspect of cocreation; RCs are designed collaboratively with people of lived experiences of mental health and addictions and care providers. Despite established benefits, there remains a lack of empirical evidence on how RCs work and on their impact., Aims: We aim to address this gap by designing a cocreated evaluation framework for RCs. This will be accomplished by engaging RC student/facilitators to provide perspectives on RCs/RC evaluation and cocreate a scoping review identifying evaluation gaps in the literature. Themes identified through these processes will form the evaluation framework., Methods and Analysis: Two methodologies will be used to explore RC evaluation: student/facilitator engagement and a scoping review of current published and grey literature on RC evaluation. Engagement will be achieved using a participatory action research approach consisting of informant interviews of ~25 RC students/facilitators across Canada, which will be thematically analysed. The scoping review will follow methodology described by Arksey and O'Malley modified to support cocreation. Concurrent conducting of the engagement process and scoping review will allow RC students and peer facilitators the opportunity to shape RC evaluations, address gaps in the literature and codesign an evaluation framework focused on recovery-oriented processes and outcomes mattering most to RCs students/facilitators., Ethics and Dissemination: Ethics approval was received for the RC student/facilitator engagement component from the Centre for Addictions and Mental Health Research Ethics Board (#042-2020) and Ontario Shores Centre for Mental Health Sciences (#20-013-B). Scoping review results will be copresented through national and international medical education conferences and published in open-access peer-reviewed journals. Furthermore, a dissemination strategy on evaluation for the national RC community will be created., Competing Interests: Competing interests: None declared., (© Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2022. Re-use permitted under CC BY-NC. No commercial re-use. See rights and permissions. Published by BMJ.)