Utilising co-design to develop a lived experience informed personal safety tool within a mental health community rehabilitation setting.
Anna Francis, Amily Le, Karen Adams-Leask and 1 others
PMID 39129440WHAT IT FOUND
Seven people with mental health lived experience co-designed a safety tool for community rehabilitation, prioritising personal strengths, sensory strategies, and flexible formatting over acute-focused risk language.
They requested dynamic, individualised plans that could be updated as circumstances changed, rejecting standardised templates.
Key findings
01Participants rejected existing acute-focused safety tools because they lacked preventative, personalised, and skill-focused approaches suitable for community rehabilitation.
02Four themes emerged from co-design: individualising content, exploring personal strengths, learning self-management skills, and treating the tool as dynamic and adaptable.
03The final tool included nine components focused on strengths, interests, and self-management, distinct from standard crisis plans by excluding trauma history prompts and allowing customisable visual formats.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for OTs
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What it does not show
The study involved only seven participants from a single service, limiting generalisability. People with lived experience were not involved in identifying the initial clinical need or forming the co-design group, deviating from true co-design principles. There was no formal evaluation of the participants' experience of the co-design process itself. The new tool has not been tested for effectiveness or feasibility in clinical practice; this is a development phase report.
Declared interests
The authors declared no conflicts of interest.
The easy way to misread this
Do not assume the co-designed Personal Safety Tool improves clinical outcomes or reduces crisis admissions. This paper describes the development of the tool through qualitative feedback; it does not report any trial data or effectiveness results.