Time Space Compassion - supporting people experiencing suicidal crisis: introductory guide

6. Impact

"There’s nothing that lights a fire for action in public services like the voice of lived experience and that’s what this work is all about."

(police officer)

Over the last 10 years, there has been a significant shift in framing and measuring impact to understand how people experience support. This includes building on existing work to develop a strong evidence base through evaluation, data and research, as well as significant growth in the recognition and role of lived experience, service design, community-led and outcome-focused approaches. Time Space Compassion is one example of how lived and living experience is actively defining policy and practice.

Scotland’s Suicide Prevention Strategy provides updated national outcomes, including the commitment that everyone affected by suicide is able to access high-quality, compassionate, appropriate and timely support – which promotes wellbeing and recovery. This applies to all children, young people and adults who experience suicidal thoughts and behaviour, anyone who cares for them and anyone affected by suicide in other ways.^xxv

An outcomes framework has been designed to support and track progress against the Strategy. Practices for mapping and measuring impact are also becoming more established across Scotland.

Work with the Lived Experience Panel has identified three key areas of early focus for Time Space Compassion:

• Access to support: to factual information, support and follow-through, including follow-up support.
• Journeys of support: including continuity of support, a trusted point of contact and support to access and move between different kinds of support.
• Expectations: of what people will experience and what they can expect from support and the people providing it.

The Time Space Compassion programme of work will continue to seek to identify effective practices and ways to define and measure impact.

In practice

“Reflecting on what we do against the principles and supporting practices gave me new insights into our strengths – it’s helped shape the next steps on our improvement work.”

“There’s links to our existing work on trauma-informed practice, Realistic Medicine, What Matters To You, and responding to Care Opinion. This will give us a frame to look at all that work from the perspective of our impact on people experiencing suicidal crisis.”

“The reflective prompts started a great conversation about taking time to share practice and supporting each other when we need it.”

“We’ve not had a way of describing our approach before. This enables us to refer to it when we write reports and apply for funding.”

Practice story - Penumbra’s outcome mapping project

Penumbra provides dedicated services to adults and young people who experience mental ill health, through a wide range of community-based mental health services. More recently, Penumbra have been exploring how to define and better understand what matters to the people they support.

"The voice of lived experience already shapes our processes and activities at Penumbra, so this project was about finding even better ways to put people at the heart of our work. We partnered with an evaluation platform provider, specialising in outcome focused evaluation, to help us do this. We brought together people who have used our services and some of our practitioners, to map out what it is that we do that makes a difference. We have translated those outcomes maps into a practical and logical approach to capturing, tracking and reporting people’s experience, so we can see and take action on the things that matter most."

(Penumbra team)

Pause and reflect

What do you already know/understand about how Time Space Compassion contributes to the impact you have?

Who else/where else holds evidence or a perspective on that?

What opportunities exist to adapt or develop what you already do, to gain a clearer picture of how Time Space Compassion contributes to the impact you have?