Mental Well-being Impact Assessment of Projects funded

Preface
With a Mental Well-being Impact Assessment (MWIA) there is much to do. In this instance the
researcher has had to interview project leaders, book venues and refreshments, co-ordinate
invitations to workshops and facilitate them. It was their responsibility to record the human
interaction that fuels much of the MWIA process, keeping track of how well-being was assessed by
six very different projects. They stimulated the necessary debate about how improvements can be
tracked. They have documented the future actions needed to make this happen. This, their
objective and evidence based report, is a culmination of all these actions.
As this is a commissioned piece of work for Liverpool Primary Care Trust I have been afforded the
luxury of being able to take time to observe proceedings and reflect upon the ‘Mental Well-being
Impact Assessment’ process.
To witness theory and methodology transformed into workshops and participation has been a
hugely enjoyable learning experience. From my vantage point I have seen the MWIA process involve
rich and varied groups of participants. In countless personal stories well-being theory has reflected
individual interpretations of what makes us feel good. If the measure of well-being is relatively new
in the NHS, workshop participants always demonstrated their knowledge of it and recognised how
important it is in their lives. As the process unfolded it was fascinating to see the concept of wellbeing
transformed into tangible realities relating to each project.
The amount of knowledge and experience gleaned about each project represented here will be a
reflection of how many people participated in particular workshops. Some were very well attended
and others were less so. The success of the MWIA process is dependent on everyone’s time and
effort and the challenge of securing people’s commitment to participate is a real one. Other factors
such as language barriers, the weather, the venue where the workshops took place and fatigue, are
sometimes unavoidable.
However, it is in these workshops where I was offered a unique insight into every project and where
I was always reminded of the inherent link between well-being and human contact. It’s not
appropriate to include every snippet of information that came forth; tangents were often gone off
on! Likewise, it was not possible to record every conversation that took place or this report would
run to thousands of pages. You really had to ‘have been there.’
I hope that this report encourages others to want to explore the possibilities of the ‘Mental Well-
Being Impact Assessment’ process for there is much to be gained.
Duncan Young
Liverpool Primary Care Trust
August 2009
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