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With the deinstitutionalisation of mental health care, individuals experiencing mental ill-health are increasingly expected to live as integrated members of the community. Yet, little is known about how they experience their everyday living environments. Situated within the post-deinstitutional paradigm, this article explores how individuals with mental ill-health navigate and make sense of their socio-spatial contexts in relation to ‘doing’ wellbeing. A Photovoice study was conducted with 12 participants (aged 26–66), recruited from three member-based Fountain Houses in Sweden. The study draws on a relational space perspective on wellbeing. Findings reveal that experiences of space and place are deeply relational, embodied, and situated—shaped by events and social interactions. These experiences cut across four categories of place: (i) enabling, (ii) troublesome, (iii) ambiguous, and (iv) places entangled with memories. We discuss how varying degrees of agency influence the emergence of wellbeing, particularly in the face of structural constraints such as poverty and regulation. Participants’ accounts also suggest that their environments resemble an “inverted city” rather than the prevailing urban planning ideal of a dense, vibrant, and inclusive city life. We conclude by emphasising the need to recognise how people, places, and policies are entangled in the practice of ‘doing’ wellbeing. to equally acknowledge how individuals’ realisation of a ‘livable life’ is supported by these spatial, material, social, and affective relations. Finally, we urge professionals in social and spatial fields to apply spatio-temporal insights in the pursuit of social inclusion - or wellbeing as a commons - not only for the group discussed here but for society as a whole.

Background: In coproduced research, competing priorities among researchers and partners often surface as the work progresses, making such processes rarely tension-free. Although coproduction approaches are increasingly used in mental health research, there is limited understanding of how tensions are managed and how this influences collaboration. Hence, the aim of the study is to explore how tensions emerge within coproduced research by analysing the conditions, interactions, and processes influencing their emergence and management.

Methods: This study was conducted within UserInvolve, a six‑year Swedish research programme involving a national service user organisation as its principal partner. Using an exploratory qualitative design, the study examined coproduction in the programme. Data were collected in two stages: (1) preparatory exploration through six group interviews concerning coproduction processes with subproject group participants, including researchers, representatives from service user organisations, national agencies, service providers (2) in-depth exploration through four group interviews focusing explicitly on tensions with a purposeful sample of participants from stage one. An abductive analytical approach was used, combining inductive interpretations with a deductive framework of four tension types: organising, learning, performance, and belonging. The analysis proceeded through four phases: exploratory analysis, condensation, collective interpretation and final synthesis within the author group.

Results: All four tension types were identified, reflecting structural constraints, negotiations of knowledge, competing purposes and questions of legitimacy in collaboration. A finding was that dynamics of power — epistemic, organisational, and relational — cut across all tensions and shaped how participants interpreted situations, negotiated roles, and understood legitimate expertise. What appeared as practical challenges often reflected deeper shifts in authority, knowledge, and expectations. Tensions also acted as generative mechanisms that prompted participants to question assumptions and develop new ways of working. Strategies for managing tensions included adaptive reflexivity, shared learning, renegotiation of roles, and sustained relational investment.

Conclusions: Tensions are inherent to coproduced mental health research and can function as productive forces that support and strengthen collaboration, learning, and epistemic development. Findings indicate that tension‑based approaches require greater attention to power, which fundamentally shapes how tensions arise and are managed. Recognising tensions as potentially generative may strengthen the design and evaluation of coproduced research.

Background: Despite the evident trend in health research to emphasise co-production approaches, there is a lack of established, comprehensive and concrete strategies and evaluation methods to effectively guide and assess them. This project aimed to develop, validate, and test a toolkit designed to enhance and evaluate co-productions in mental health research. The toolkit includes practical evaluation tools, such as a structured questionnaire and tailored interview guides, to support the initiation of research projects and assess the involvement, process and impact of co-production efforts.

Methods: This project used a co-production approach with formative research design to develop a comprehensive toolkit for evaluating the process and impact of co-production in mental health research. Conducted between 2022 and 2024, the project involved iterative engagement with diverse stakeholder groups, providing a dynamic testbed for developing, validating, and field-testing the instruments. The paper outlines the four-phase process: (1) toolkit generation, (2) validation, (3) field-testing, and (4) completion, detailing how the co-production approach shaped the toolkit’s design, relevance, usability, and rigor.

Results: The result of this project is a structured, practical, and comprehensive co-production evaluation toolkit designed specifically for mental health research, potentially involving a wide range of partnerships. The toolkit includes a project initiation guide, a process-oriented survey and interview-guide for mid- and post-project evaluations, and an impact-focused post-project group interview guide.

Conclusions: The findings address a critical gap in mental health research by developing a structured, practical, and comprehensive co-production evaluation toolkit. The toolkit offers comprehensive strategies for evaluating involvement and both the processes and impacts of co-production throughout a project's lifecycle.

User-focused monitoring (UFM) is a method for service evaluation led by service users, aimed at enhancing quality and service user involvement. Our study examines the experienced outcomes following the completion of five UFM projects within Swedish mental health service programs. Specifically, we focus on the barriers and facilitators to integrating user-led evaluations into service program development. Through interviews with user monitors, managers, staff, and service users involved in these evaluation projects, we conducted a directed content analysis focused on preconditions, processes, and outcomes. Our findings indicate that UFM projects contribute to specific development measures and improved relationships within service programs but also to broader cultural change. However, a lack of trust among service users in actual change poses a significant obstacle to their involvement. Additionally, the absence of feedback regarding the implementation of change measures by service programs to service user groups risks reinforcing this lack of trust. To enhance the integration of evaluation results into quality development, early engagement with staff groups and clear implementation plans are recommended.

Purpose: Rural communities face specific challenges when attempting to implement evidence-based interventions, due to their size, distance from knowledge centers, and broad responsibility for the local population. The aim of this study was to investigate the utilization of an RPC (Research Practice Collaboration) initiative as a strategy for translation and implementation of EBPs in rural municipalities seeking to develop their services for individuals with serious mental illness.

Materials and Methods: Following a broad invitation consisting of a presentation of the newly produced National Psychiatry Guidelines, to four northern regions in Sweden, four municipalities participated in an RPC process that focused on the implementation of specific EBPs.

Results: In addition to confirming many of the challenges in rural areas, the participants reported that the RPC process helped them to understand the relevance of these methods to their own conditions and ambitions. They were able to recognize and build on their already existing strengths and achieve incremental steps toward EBPs.

Discussion: The collaborative nature of the structure and knowledge dissemination, requiring extremely tailored implementation strategies while considering the essential components in relation to local conditions, led to increased readiness to implement these practices as locally relevant.

Conclusion: Research practice collaborations may contribute to the implementation of EBPs in rural areas by increasing the accessibility and relevance of these methods in these challenging conditions. Identifying structures for sustainably supporting these types of collaborations is a challenge for national actors.

Background: Rural communities face specific challenges when implementing evidence-based practices (EBPs) due to their size, remoteness from knowledge centers, and broad responsibility for the local population. Studies indicate that these challenges can negatively impact the development of best practice for individuals with serious mental illnesses.

Purpose: The aim of this study was to investigate the utilization of an RPC (Research Practice Collaboration) initiative as a strategy for translation and implementation of psychiatric rehabilitation methods in rural municipalities.

Method:  With the starting point in form of a seminar where the updated National Psychiatry Guidelines were presented, four rural municipalities from the north of Sweden engaged in an RPC process, focusing on implementing specific recovery-oriented EBPs, including Individual Placement and Support and Shared Decision-Making.

Results: In addition to confirming challenges in rural areas, the RPC process helped the participants to understand the relevance of these practices to their own conditions and ambitions for individuals experiencing mental health problems. The municipalities were able to build on their already existing strengths and achieve incremental steps towards providing improved services.

Conclusions: The collaborative nature of the RPC structure, requiring locally relevant, tailored implementation strategies, while considering essential method components in relation to local conditions, led to increased readiness to implement these practices. Research practice collaborations may contribute to the implementation of methods based on best practice in rural areas by increasing their accessibility and relevance in these challenging conditions.

User-focused monitoring (UFM) is a method for fostering user involvement at organizational levels in the evaluation and quality development of mental health service and support programs. To enhance understanding of factors that promote or hinder the implementation of UFM, we have purposely sampled and followed five Swedish UFM projects through a case study approach, paying specific attention to key components for its sustainable implementation. We collected empirical data through interviews with involved actors during a start-up phase and shortly after the UFM projects ended, and examination of UFM reports. The acquired data were subjected to directed content analysis, guided by normalization process theory. The results highlight the importance of coherence in the goals and methodological procedures for promoting implementation of UFM projects, as well as activation of the engagement of both service users and staff in initial stages.

The overall aim of the present study is to describe and explore the characteristics and content of school social worker’s (SSWs) individual counselling with children as these are imprinted in session protocols collected at Swedish elementary schools. Specific focus is placed on the character of the children’s concerns, the content of the SSW’s helping strategies, and challenges related to the alliance between the SSW and the children as experienced by the SSW. The study was based on data from a survey protocol of 20 SSW’s daily practice regarding their experiences in counselling children and adolescents. The data consisted of 193 protocols from the same number of unique individual sessions. Data were analysed through quantitative descriptive statistics. The data also contained a large proportion of open-ended textual answers, which were analysed through a qualitative summative content analysis. The counselling strategies were primarily divided into three parts, namely coaching, processing, and assessing. The most common practice elements used included elements of empowerment, alliance and relationship, and hope and trust. In counselling children, SSWs identified a broad range of problems in children’s overall lives. Many children suffered from their home situations, which also impinged upon the SSWs, who were affected by the children’s life narrative. Our results can help inform SSW policy and practices as SSWs assist vulnerable children through individual counselling that corresponds to their help-seeking behaviour and by offering a space for alliances and relationships.

The integration of peer support workers (PSW) into the mental health services workforce has offered additional avenues to strengthen service provision. In Sweden, the availability of peer support workers has grown significantly over the past decade, yet there has been insufficient investigation into their organization and implementation. Consequently, there is a growing need for further research into the current state of peer support within the Swedish context. To examine stakeholders’ perspectives on the current state of peer support within the context of Swedish mental health services. In this qualitative study, a purposeful sampling method was employed in order to recruit 30 stakeholders, including peer support workers (n = 17) within mental health services, county council and municipal officials (n = 8), and representatives from user organizations (n = 5). The informants took part in focus groups or semi-structured individual interviews. The results highlight key factors from stakeholders for advancing peer support, providing PSWs with career paths and skill development, and advocating to top-level authorities. Organizational structures need to support sustainability, with Sweden's user organizations playing a crucial role to mitigate peer drifting. Long-term success relies on secure employment and a clear implementation strategy. The physical work environment shapes peer support implementation and requires clearly defined work roles. Navigating mental health services was viewed as challenging. According to the results, it requires stakeholders to balance perspectives and address feelings of inadequacy among PSWs, underscoring the need to legitimize the PSW profession in mental health care. To ensure genuine progress in the current organization of peer support, this work role must become a foundational aspect of service delivery, rather than merely an add-on, to foster the development of a more recovery-oriented mental health service in Sweden.