Tamara Sale1; 1Early Assessment and Support Alliance (EASA) Center for Excellence, Oregon Health Sciences University, Portland, OR, USA
Purpose: Responding to the need to increase the meaningful involvement of youth/young adults, the EASA Young Adult Leadership Council (YALC) was created in 2013 to provide direction and feedback to Oregon’s statewide early psychosis dissemination effort. Methods: YALC members have prioritized improving rapid identification and early engagement in EASA, and used their own experiences to inform policy development, research, clinical training and practice. YALC's interest in reducing early drop-out and increasing initial engagement led to the EASA Connections research study in which EASA graduates and participants worked with researchers and EASA clinicians to design and develop a peer-oriented web resource and investigate its impact on new individuals entering the EASA program. Findings: EASA Connections is in the final stages of testing. The iterative process in which YALC generated priorities informed by data and understanding of the EASA program, launched a separate participatory research process, and participated in the development and implementation of the research, provides a template for similar bodies in other programs. In addition, the Leadership Council has spearheaded the use of iterative feedback to develop policy recommendations and feedback for practice guidelines, written materials and trainings, in a fashion which may begin to inform the field about how such leadership groups can integrate lived experience, quality improvement, research and policy advocacy to maximize the impact and effectiveness of early psychosis efforts. Conclusion: EASA's experiences underscore the impact of young adult leadership and the importance of incorporating such mechanisms in EI.
