The project employed a co-design participatory approach for a deeper understanding of overdose capacity building needs at the local level and achieving more in-depth information and insight for developing the COM-CAP project tools. This approach also facilitated and supported inclusion of lived/living expertise, community-based decision making, consensus building, and shared ownership in the building capacity at the local level [6–7]. The workshop techniques and materials (see Appendix A) were developed based on results achieved from a prior situational assessment which is reported in detail elsewhere [15]. In summary, the situational assessment identified four main themes in order: a) data and information; b) evidence and practice,; c) implementation factors; and d) partnership, engagement and collaboration. Stigma and equity were noted as overarching areas of need to be addressed across all main themes. The elicitation techniques used to structure the workshop were intended to engage the participants in a collaborative discussion and identification of the issues experienced in leading community overdose response plans. Ethics review for the project was provided [removed for review] and [removed for review] Research Ethics Board. Informed consent was obtained from all participants.
Workshop participants included 52 representatives from public health, academic, government, and community sectors involved in opioid and overdose-related plans in Ontario. Participants included representatives of public health units and drug strategies in Ontario (n = 22), hospitals (n = 4), provincial government or agencies (n = 3), academia (n = 2), 17 participants from other involved sectors in opioid-related plans including harm reduction efforts, and 10 people with lived/living expertise of drug use.
To provide participants the opportunity to engage in the process and facilitate the discussion, the following co-design techniques and tools were used: scenarios and personas (as subjects of conversation), prompt cards (as tools for conversation), and a community capacity building matrix (as an enabler in generating and forming new ideas on priority supports). Scenarios were the main mechanism used for encouraging communication and collaborative discussion. Personas and scenarios used in a healthcare context enable participants to engage more quickly in topics during participatory workshops since they enable speaking to and through a fictional scenario and character. Personas and scenarios serve as a skeleton framework, enable participants to relate with the specific situation and character, flesh out details from their perspective and discuss the needs and high-level actions for addressing the needs [16]. Personas are a vivid, fictitious representation of a specific character, which has a potential to build and develop empathy with the real character. It enables discussion about a rich and authentic personality with specific needs [17].
The technique of using personas and scenarios is also effective in situations where participants may not have continuous involvement in a change process. It allows the specific needs of participants to be accounted for, ensuring fuller engagement with those who may usually not be invited to contribute and provide input [18].
Four workshop scenarios were developed from themes that emerged from the situational assessment process. The scenarios were designed to illustrate situations that embodied the themes across different phases of the community overdose response planning, including: Plan development, Plan implementation, Plan adaptation, and Plan sustainability & iteration (Fig. 1). (For more details of the scenarios see Appendix A, supplemenatry Figs. 1–4).
Various prompt cards were developed as tools for conversation (see examples in Appendix A, supplementary Figs. 6–8). We used persona cards (see exmaple in Appendix A, supplementary Fig. 5) as a realistic representation of diverse stakeholders involved in opioid/overdose plans, including: local paramedic, local pharmacist, shelter director, drug strategy coordinator, family physicians, PWLE; quote cards and wild cards were developed to represent specific types of ideas and situations, and 40 challenge cards were developed and designed to address the most important identified support areas for the key themes across the workshop scenarios.
Capacity building matrix was developed to enable discussion and ideation on more practical aspects of how challenges could be supported through capacity building ideas. The matrix provided support at the individual and organizational levels (see Appendix, supplementary Fig. 9).
The workshop consisted of two breakout sessions, which aimed to provide a space to collectively discuss and identify COM-CAP priorities, activities and supports, as well as plans to evaluate the COM-CAP project. Figure 2 illustrates the workshop process.
Breakout Session 1: COM-CAP priorities, activities, and supports
The main breakout session on identifying COM-CAP priorities, activities, and supports consisted of two activities (Fig. 2):
- Identifying Top Priority Scenarios and Challenges
- Step 1: Prioritization of Scenarios (selection of two scenarios to focus and work on)
- Step 2: Prioritization of Challenges for the selected scenarios
- Identifying Top Priority Supports - Capacity Building Matrix
Activity One: Identifying Top Priority Scenarios and Challenges
Participants were divided into 12 multi-stakeholder groups for facilitated co-design activities. Each group consisted of 5 participants and a facilitator to introduce workshop materials and facilitate collaborative discussion on co-design activities. Each group was provided with four scenarios, and associated challenge cards, personas, quote cards, and wild cards. Participants were asked to:
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Review and prioritize each scenario and choose two to work on;
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Record their rationale for scenario choices;
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Review, select, and prioritize the top challenges for each scenario (participants had the opportunity to add other challenges that were not already represented).
Activity Two: Identifying Top Priority Supports
To delve deeper into the most urgent or priority supports for the COM-CAP project, each group was asked to:
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Collaboratively identify supports/resources/tools that would enable capacity building for top priority needs;
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Use a capacity building matrix to structure a discussion and ideation session considering both individual and organizational level needs under five specific topics: Support for whom? to do what? how to develop? deliver? and sustain?
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Vote on the top three challenge cards and priority supports (using dot stickers on the matrix).
Breakout session 2: Evaluation of COM-CAP
A second breakout session focused on COM-CAP’s evaluation and discussion on anticipated impacts. The session began by presenting the “Framework for Evaluation of Complex Drug Strategies”, [19] followed by a facilitated group discussion activity. Participants were asked for a collaborative discussion and ideation on two following questions:
- What would be different in your work, organization, coalition, and community in 1-2 years when COM-CAP has successfully delivered?
- What changes would COM-CAP need to support in your work, organization, coalition, and community to have a greater impact on your opioid/overdose plan?
The main goal of the activity was to examine outcomes and support needs that would help the project team develop a framework for evaluating COM-CAP.
Figure 2, illustrates the main breakout session process (Identifying COM-CAP priorities activities and supports), including: the session process, employed activities, applied tools, and achieved results.
Analysis
Discussion notes and the 19 capacity building matrices completed by participants (short text-based contributions on sticky notes), were collected and analyzed to identify and prioritize the key support areas (challenges) and detailed components of priority supports. We employed a deductive qualitative approach for text-based contributions [20–21] due to the a priori structuring of the co-design materials and prompts. Analysis was undertaken by the research team at OCAD University including 4 research assistants and 1 senior researcher, this process included the transcription of written notes and sticky notes into Microsoft Excel. The first step was to sort the data into categories by scenario, challenges and support matrix in line with the structuring of the co-design. These initial groupings were then reviewed by the team, revising the sorting of data within each five major groupings as discussion developed around convergent and divergent participant contributions (within a priori structure of the data). This process was undertaken three times before finalizing groupings and identifying priority support areas, and collaboratively describing each support. Participants’ votes on the prioritized areas enabled the research team to identify and rank the top support areas (top-ranked challenges), with their associated delivery methods, that were to be considered in the design and development of the main components of the COM-CAP project tool. These priority support areas were then shared with the advisory and scientific team, and then the community collaborators for feedback and review No adjustments to the priority support areas were made at that stage.