Knowledge transfer, policymaking and community empowerment: a consensus model approach for providing public mental health and substance abuse services.

An important problem in creating new programs and policies is how to encourage the transfer of knowledge in non-hierarchical ways so that new, relevant and specific knowledge is co-created by all interested parties. In this paper, we suggest that a consensus model of policymaking is one response and identify four key structural elements thought necessary for creating such a consensus infrastructure. These are a) a leadership and facilitating capacity for initiating and promoting such an endeavor, b) a network or consortium of key researchers, practitioners, consumers, and policymakers to empower community ownership of the endeavor, c) a process for consensus building and strategic problem-solving for such a consortium, and d) the continued creation of a multi-directional dialogue through information dissemination. We examine these elements in action by describing a particular problem solving and consensus building model for developing and implementing a program, resolving group differences, and evaluating the group's process and products.