Lambeth Prevention and Promotion for Better Mental Health and Wellbeing (PHIRST Connect)

The Prevention and Promotion for Better Mental Health and Wellbeing programme was launched in Lambeth in September 2021 to provide support to vulnerable residents and groups as a response to the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic. The programme was made up of nine individual projects that sought to improve mental health and wellbeing. The current research will evaluate three of these projects: the Outreach Worker, the Loneliness Project, and The Black Men’s Consortium. These three projects tackled different areas: the Outreach Worker engaged with residents at a neighbourhood level, developing a relationship with community members to engage them in mental ill-health prevention. The Loneliness Project targeted residents living alone who were older and/or at risk of or currently experiencing poor health with community outreach events. The Black Men’s Consortium aimed to improve mental health in working age black men through art therapy. The proposed research aims to evaluate these programmes using a realist evaluation approach. This methodology looks at what works, how, in which conditions and for whom, and builds programme theories centred around context, mechanism and outcome (CMO) configurations. This methodology is better suited than traditional approaches to the evaluation of complex interventions embedded in complex systems where controlling variables to determine effects is not possible. A realist evaluation happens in three phases: 1) development of the initial programme theories, 2) testing of initial programme theories using empirical data, and 3) synthesis of programme theory. Realist interviews with stakeholders from across the three projects and programme documentation will form the core ‘data’ in these stages. Dissemination of the findings from this research study will use traditional and creative methods to mobilise the knowledge from the evaluation and provide insights about how to replicate desired effects of such programmes in future to the public, professional programme stakeholders and wider public health teams; as well as third sector organisations, and researchers.