About

Are you a part of something new and innovative that is making a difference for people using mental health and addiction services? Do you know of an inspiring initiative or pilot taking place?

In stories of change we showcase exciting new or unique service developments, quality improvements and other inspiring mental health and addiction initiatives. This resource is a great way to share learnings and find out about what's going on in the sector, who is doing what and where. Over time, it will become a useful collection of ideas for service innovation and improvement towards best outcomes for service users.

The stories presented include brief facts about initiatives such as what, why, where and the target population. Each story describes in detail the background, what the people actually do, what is unique about their approach, the results and what lessons have been learned.

We draw attention to the integral role that evaluation plays in service and workforce development by presenting evaluation activities and results. Good evaluation makes an important contribution to ongoing quality.

If you want to know more about a profiled service you can open attached information files or use the contact details to get in touch with the service directly. Some stories will have short video or audio files.

You can suggest a story by completing an online expression of interest or emailing us at keadmin "at" tepou.co.nz. Before you submit your project, it is helpful to prepare information for the submission process.

We review submitted stories against a set of criteria. Some of the factors we consider for story selection are:

status of the initiative (new service development, type of innovation, level of service user involvement)
evidence of impact
regional and cultural representation
future potential (replicable, sustainable, enhances local and regional partnerships).

If your initiative is selected to be developed as a story of change, we will visit your organisation to learn more about the initiative. The visit can include interviews with people involved in the initiative, and audio/visual recordings where appropriate. We will then develop the story and explore what additional material from you (for example your flyer or an evaluation report) or web links would provide useful additional information for your story. Naturally you will be invited to review the draft story for accuracy and to gain organisational sign off for publication, as per your own policy requirements. We incorporate your suggestions and send this version to our communications team. Their role is to check the story is aligned with Te Pou's style and presentation guidelines before it is posted on Te Pou's website. When it goes live, we send you an email with a link to the web page of your story. To promote your story you may want to email the link on to others or include it in your newsletter or website.

Browse

You may browse the stories for most recently submitted or by alphabetical order (by name of the story).

Search

You may search all information on the Knowledge Exchange or select a particular subgroup such as the stories. The search filters enable you to search the stories of change or database entries from a list of selected keywords. Alternatively you can enter a keyword and click ‘search'.

For more information

Contact Anita Langthaller

Page last updated: 9 February 2010