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Service Development and Delivery
Service Development & Delivery | Discussion Forum
Are you someone who manages Forensic mental health services or contracts to have them provided? You could be a manager (clinical or general), an administrator or a Director.
Equally you could be a purchaser, commissioner or government or court official responsible for Forensic Mental Health services, if so the International Association of Forensic Mental Health Services has established an Administrators section within the IAFMHS to cater for our needs.
Across the world models of treatment services for mentally ill or personality disordered offenders differ greatly. This section would give an opportunity for those people responsible for running or buying these services to exchange ideas.
To date the IAFMHS and many other organisations cater for comparison, study and research of scientific and clinical matters but there appears to be no opportunity for similar study or research into the management of these organisations.
This section is a forum for the exchange of experiences and ideas where the participants do not have to represent any formal system but can be open for discussion. In recent years section members have shared ideas and collaborated on subjects such as quality standards, risk management, treatment programs and outcomes, service specifications and much, much more! We believe that the opportunity to study, compare and benchmark services will enable us to run our services more effectively leading to a better quality of care and more efficiently enabling us to provide a better quality service within finite budgets.
Target group
As above those responsible for managing or commissioning forensic mental health services or those responsible for the administrative or legal structure in which such services run. This could be people from the legal or government system, the people responsible for buying or commissioning these services be they in the public or private sectors and those responsible for managing or directing the services be they clinicians or general managers or administrators.
We have a strong international membership and welcome new members to the section.
Goals
- Learning from each others service models
- Developing a stronger evidence-base for the provision of forensic service models
- Benchmarking services
How to achieve these goals
- Meet annually during the IAFMHS conference with future appropriate symposia or academic sessions.
- Regular contact through the year to consider topics of interest.
If you are interested in joining our group please sign up for the section meeting at our Annual Conference.
Contact: Dr. Lindsay Thomson (lindsay.thomson1@nhs.scot)
IAFMHS Webinar Series: International Mapping of Forensic Mental Health Practices
Date: 24 March 2026
Marichelle Leclair, Arianne Imbeault, Brian McKenna, Tonia Nicholls, Anne Crocker, & Lindsay Thomson
This webinar presents findings from an international Delphi project conducted by members of the IAFMHS Special Interest Group on Service Development and Delivery. Reflecting the SIG’s mandate to learn from and compare service models, strengthen the evidence base for forensic mental health service delivery, and establish meaningful benchmarks, the project sought to establish a shared definition of forensic mental health services and to identify core principles and components of high-quality service provision that are applicable across diverse jurisdictions. Using the Delphi method and drawing on the perspectives of 24 international experts, including people with lived experience and professionals from clinical, managerial, and academic backgrounds, the consensus framework outlines guiding principles and consensus statements across thematic domains, including models of care, service pathways and processes, and programs and activities. The webinar will focus on how this framework can be used in practice to support the development, delivery, and evaluation of forensic mental health services while also highlighting areas of ongoing debate, including the role of lived experience expertise, the integration of cultural knowledge, and the balance between descriptive and aspirational elements within service systems. The session is intended to support reflection, discussion, and practical application within forensic mental health services.
Presenter: Marichelle Leclair
Marichelle Leclair, PhD, is an assistant professor at the Université du Québec en Outaouais and a researcher at the Institut national de psychiatrie légale Philippe-Pinel. With a background in psychology and public health, her work focuses on addressing systemic violence at the intersection of health and justice. She leads participatory, community-partnered research with Indigenous knowledge keepers and community partners, people with lived experience, families, service providers, and policymakers to help transform systems still shaped by stigma, coercion, and exclusion. Through collaborations in Canada, Aotearoa New Zealand, and Scotland, Marichelle conducts fieldwork and helps design new models of care that can inform policy, practice, and system reform. Across all her projects, she’s committed to research that doesn’t just describe systems but works to change them.