One of the most exciting parts of the BRIM initiative is that it creates a platform for innovation and doing something that the recovery field has not been very good at – systematically assessing what works and how it works.
Across the UK and internationally, the recovery community, through LEROs and through mutual aid groups, has developed a diverse range of ways to support people in recovery, their families and even the wider communities, yes so many of these initiatives remain both unknown outside of the area and untested using the basic principles of social science.
What BRIM will afford us the opportunity to do is to provide a more systematic framework for mapping and measuring and starting to ask questions of a range of initiatives and then perhaps to ask wider questions that can inform a recovery science
What would evaluations typically attempt to do?
Standardly there are three questions you might want to address with an evaluation of a programme or intervention:
Is the intervention consistent with the evidence base (what existing research shows) or with the theory underpinning how people can change?
Has the proposed intervention been implemented as effectively as possible?
What has been the impact of the intervention?
How much focus there is on each element will depend on the priorities of the commissioners of the work, but generally the emphasis will be on the last part and showing that ‘it has made a difference’.
What might be different about recovery evaluations?
There are some things that we might want to think of differently about recovery activities that make them different and so would make the focus of the evaluation different. The first of these is that recovery is both contagious (in that it spreads from one person to another) and a fundamentally social process, so we need to think at the level of the group and not just about the impact of the person who receives the intervention.
Second, it is reciprocal – and so it means we also have to factor in the impact on the person delivering the intervention. We have to start with the assumption that all parties – staff, volunteers as well as people in recovery – are important and that we have to monitor and measure the impact on their wellbeing. In this sense, recovery is holistic and we are looking at the impact on relationships inside and outside the room in which the activity takes place.
Community will also play a significant role in assessing the effectiveness of recovery activities and interventions – part of what many activities do will be to build bridges into the community and so we might want to look at the effects on stigma, public attitudes and perceptions and the longer-term resources in the community.
Finally, the impacts will be fundamentally strengths-based. What we are trying to measure is the growth of wellbeing and that means there are some intangible things that are difficult to capture such as hope and connection.
So what are we trying to do with BRIM?
The BRIM programme affords us an opportunity to do something really special in Middlesbrough. Not only will we be able to assess a series of programmes and activities run by Recovery Connections and across the region, we will also be able to start creating common metrics for measuring recovery projects and programmes.
It is likely that the core measures will include things like:
Sustainability (how much the programme grows and becomes enmeshed in other things over time, including the development of new champions and groups)
Reach (what contagion effects are there and are there benefits for families and communities)
Reciprocal growth (are there benefits for those delivering the programme and does it build stronger connections and relationships)
Knock-on effects (does the programme lead to other opportunities and new sets of activities and partnerships)
Integration (the development of greater trust with specialist professional services and commissioners leading to further opportunities and stronger pathways for people in recovery
This is not meant to be a comprehensive list but is a starting point about what recovery evaluations should attempt to do. So our job in Middlesbrough will be to assess what works but also to create a language that can be replicated in other settings to test what is important in recovery activities. This is a wonderful opportunity to build capacity, credibility and to continue our journey of building a dedicated science of recovery.
