STEPS Consumer Engagement Project
Description
The Skills to Enable People and communitieS (STEPS) Program is a statewide program for adults with acquired brain injury and their supporters. STEPS consists of two components, namely a) 6 week facilitated Skills Program based on self-management principles and; b) statewide network groups. Skills programs are run by local people who are trained, supported and supervised by STEPS Program staff to become STEPS Program Leaders. This study is a joint STEPS and ABIOS study involving the evaluation of consumer and healthcare professional partnerships that were implemented in the redevelopment of the STEPS Skills Program Workbook. It emerged from previous work exploring the peer-professional workforce model that is integral to the STEPS service model. Specifically, the study aims to:
- Describe the processes that are associated with involving consumers in the redevelopment of service level resources in community brain injury rehabilitation
- Describe the outcomes that are associated with involving consumers in the redevelopment of service level resources in community brain injury rehabilitation as perceived by those consumers engaged as well as those consumers and service leaders who utilise the end product
Rationale
STEPS is recognised both within Australia and internationally, as an innovative model that utilises a peer-professional workforce to deliver services and support within the true spirit of consumer engagement. While being a pivotal role model within Queensland for consumer engagement, the resources developed for the STEPS Skills Program were initially developed by healthcare professionals rather than consumers. A need was identified within the 2018 STEPS Leader Conference to revise these program resources to enhance their relevance to people with brain injury and supporters. While the peer-professional workforce has been previously investigated, little is known about engaging consumers in developing resources.
Participants
STEPS Program leaders (peer and professional)
STEPS Program staff
STEPS Skills Group participants
Key Features
An evaluative study of the processes and outcomes of consumer engagement in resource development
Reflective of the core consumer engagement of the STEPS Service model
Funding
This study is funded within the researcher/clinician roles of the research team across both STEPS and ABIOS
Research/Evaluation Strategies
This study will be conducted through an evaluative and pragmatic approach to investigating the processes and outcomes associated with the redevelopment of the STEPS Skills Program workbook. The study is divided into 2 stages: 1) Retrospective analysis of written and oral data collected as part of the quality improvement project to redevelop the workbook 2) prospective interviews with 3 groups (individuals involved in the redevelopment, participants of the Skills Program who will utilize the redeveloped workbook and a group of Skills Program leaders who will deliver the workbook as part of future STEPS Skills Programs).
The study will be largely qualitative in nature.
Publications
There are no publications to date from this study.