Rulers of engagement: A novel approach to measuring engagement in a large Mental and Behavioral Health Institute

While community engagement (CE) has been increasing in the mental and behavioral health fields, evaluation of CE remains a challenge. Currently, there are no published evaluation tools that assess frequency of engagement, and many CE measures are not based on established engagement theories. Based on the International Association for Public Participation's CE continuum, the CE team of the Mental and Behavioral Health Institute (MBHI) at a large pediatric hospital developed a system of measurement to describe frequency of engagement across eight initiatives. This tool, the Frequency of Active Community Engagement (FACE) measure, was administered to the leaders of each of the participating MBHI teams. FACE summarized CE frequencies for three target populations (youth, caregivers, and community members) for each team. Follow-up team meetings provided additional descriptive information for the development of CE goals. In this special communication, we describe this data collection approach, CE results, as well as future directions and potential uses for FACE as an evaluation tool.