Preparing both caregiver advisors and service providers for their new roles is incredibly important. Based upon our research, the following approaches represent best practice in collaborative engagement.

Orientation Checklist
A comprehensive checklist for three phases of orientation, to help ensure that new caregiver advisors are provided with the information they need to fulfill their roles.

Tips for Mentoring Success
Advice for choosing an appropriate mentor, with tips on how to ease new caregiver advisors into their roles.

Sharing Your Expertise
An essential resource that offers caregiver advisors the guidance they need to share their expertise in an organizational setting (including differentiating the act of advising from sharing a personal story or grievance).

First Meeting Debrief
Don’t wait to find out if a caregiver advisor is doing alright in their new role. Use these questions to identify and address any concerns after their first meeting in their new role.
This two-minute video highlights several challenges that a family caregiver advisor encounters at their first advisory board meeting.
Video Workbook
This workbook identifies and offers solutions to the six challenges identified in the video.
Next: Sustaining
Building a Framework for Supporting Meaningful Family Caregiver Engagement
We set out to understand how to build and maintain meaningful collaborative partnerships with family caregiver advisors at mental health and substance use disorder organizations in Ontario, as well as to co-design knowledge products for organizations seeking to engage family caregiver advisors. Learn more about our guiding research and co-design process, About us.

Funding for this project was provided by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) and The Royal Ottawa Foundation for Mental Health with The Royal’s Institute of Mental Health Research.



(c) Copyright. Building a Framework for Supporting Meaningful Family Caregiver Engagement, 2021. All rights reserved.