Tag: leadership

Systemic Barriers & Power Impact Framework (SBPIF) Organisational Assessment Tool

Purpose of This Tool

Katie Gregory (2025)

The SBPIF Organisational Assessment Tool is designed to help mental health services critically examine power structures, systemic barriers, and access inequities in their service delivery. It provides a structured approach for reflection, accountability, and transformation towards anti-oppressive, trauma-informed, and co-produced mental health care.

This tool can be used for:

  • Service audits & reviews
  • Staff training & reflection
  • Service user co-production discussions
  • Policy and practice development
  • Accountability and transformation planning

How to Use This Tool

This tool consists of five core domains with reflective questions and an assessment scale to identify strengths, gaps, and areas for action. Organisations can use it as a self-assessment or through facilitated group discussions with staff, service users, and stakeholders.

Assessment Scale

Each statement is rated on a 1-5 scale:

  • 1 – Not at all (This is not considered or addressed in our service)
  • 2 – Rarely (Minimal consideration or action, mostly reactive)
  • 3 – Sometimes (Some efforts are made, but inconsistently)
  • 4 – Often (Considered and implemented, but with gaps)
  • 5 – Fully integrated (Embedded in policy, practice, and culture)

For each domain, score your organisation’s current position and note specific evidence, challenges, and actions for improvement.

SBPIF Organisational Assessment Domains

1. Power: Who Holds It and How It Is Used?

  • To what extent do service users influence decision-making within our organisation?
  • Do we acknowledge and challenge professional and institutional power imbalances?
  • Are there mechanisms for staff to challenge hierarchical structures without fear of repercussions?
  • Are there transparent processes for service users and communities to hold our organisation accountable?

Score (1-5): ____
Evidence & Challenges: ______________
Actions for Change: ______________

2. Systemic Barriers: Access, Exclusion & Equity

  • Do we recognise and address barriers related to poverty, disability, racism, gender identity, or neurodivergence in accessing services?
  • Are our referral pathways accessible, timely, and inclusive for all?
  • How do we accommodate service users with complex needs (e.g., trauma histories, multiple diagnoses, cultural or language differences)?
  • Are policies and funding structures reinforcing exclusionary practices (e.g., diagnosis-dependent access, long waiting lists)?

Score (1-5): ____
Evidence & Challenges: ______________
Actions for Change: ______________

3. Meaning: Service Users’ Experiences & Narratives

  • Do we explore and validate service users’ own meanings of distress, rather than relying solely on medicalised frameworks?
  • How do we ensure that individuals’ social, cultural, and systemic contexts shape care plans?
  • Are we enabling people to define their own recovery, rather than imposing professionalised expectations?
  • Do we actively listen to service users’ experiences of oppression, discrimination, and harm within mental health services?

Score (1-5): ____
Evidence & Challenges: ______________
Actions for Change: ______________

4. Responses: How People Adapt & Resist Systems

  • Do we recognise distress as a response to systemic harm, rather than an individual ‘disorder’?
  • How do we support service users in self-advocacy and resistance against oppressive practices?
  • Do we enable choice in treatment options, including non-medical approaches?
  • How do we respond when people disengage, resist, or challenge our services? Are they met with punishment, coercion, or further exclusion?

Score (1-5): ____
Evidence & Challenges: ______________
Actions for Change: ______________

5. Transformation: Structural Change & Accountability

  • Is there an organisational commitment to anti-oppressive, trauma-informed, and power-conscious practice?
  • Do we measure and track systemic inequities in service provision?
  • How do we ensure that service users and marginalised communities are leading service transformation efforts?
  • Do we have accountability structures in place to ensure ongoing improvement?

Score (1-5): ____
Evidence & Challenges: ______________
Actions for Change: ______________

Reflection & Action Plan

  1. Which domains scored the lowest, and why?
  2. Which areas need urgent attention and systemic change?
  3. What immediate steps can be taken?
  4. What long-term changes are required to redistribute power and improve accessibility?
  5. How will we ensure accountability for these actions?

Commitment to Change

This framework is not a tick-box exercise—it’s a tool for meaningful change. Organisations should revisit it regularly and involve service users, staff, and community stakeholders in developing and implementing solutions.

Next Steps:

✅ Share results with leadership and frontline staff.
✅ Identify specific action points for immediate and long-term change.
✅ Set a timeline for reviewing progress.
✅ Work towards co-production and structural reform.

By using the SBPIF, organisations can move beyond surface-level reforms and begin dismantling the systemic barriers that shape mental health care.

Are you ready to challenge power structures and create real change? Start your assessment today.

Transparency Statement:
This document was collaboratively developed with the support of AI to enhance clarity, structure, and efficiency. However, all concepts, analysis, and critical reflections within the Systemic Barriers & Power Impact Framework (SBPIF) are grounded in professional expertise, lived experience, and a commitment to systemic change in mental health services.

Are Personality Tests Accurate?                                   

Introduction 

In psychology personality tests are widely utilised and serve as crucial tools to predict behaviours and gauge individual traits across a variety of contexts. The efficacy and accuracy of personality tests are however frequently contested, despite their widespread usage. These tools range from simple questionnaires to complex clinical instruments and have been praised for their ease of administration and a potential depth of insight into humankind. Alongside criticism for potential biases such as participants responding in socially desirable ways and cultural inapplicability (Wiener & Green, 2017).

Popularity and Challenges of Self-Report Measures 

With rich, introspective insights and an ease of administration personality tests, particularly self-report questionnaires have become very popular. However, the way that participants behave during testing can significantly alter and compromise validity. Acquiescence bias, a tendency to agree with questions regardless of the content, and social desirability bias, where participants respond in a manner they perceive as favourable rather than truthfully, are significant challenges (Gudjonsson & Young, 2011; Morales-Vives et al, 2014). These behaviours highlight the issues of validity and reliability in these tests and reflect the complex dynamics between human psychology and test design.  

Theoretical Assumptions and Real Concepts 

The idea that certain behaviours and traits can be measured quantitatively and predicted over time has become the foundation that many personality tests rest on. However, this is a point of contention, the question is whether these tests measure real, stable constructs or potentially just a snapshot of a person’s situation or mood at that time. This debate focus’ in on the centre of personality psychology; the change versus stability paradigm, which questions whether personality traits are consistent over time or subjective and can change due to personal development or situational factors.  

Applicability Beyond WEIRD Contexts 

The development of most personality assessments within WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialised, Rich, and Democratic) societies raises concerns about their validity and applicability across diverse cultural settings (Henrich et al, 2010; Muthukrishna et al, 2022). 

 When so many tests are standardised and normed on populations that do not represent global diversity, this potentially leads to biased conclusions and interpretations when these tools are applied in non-WIERD contexts. This is a crucial factor for consideration, as the cultural limitations they possess affect the global utility of personality tests, which challenges the relevance and universality across different societies and cultures. 

Conclusion

Personality tests remain valuable tools for understanding individual traits and behaviours across different settings. However, the challenges of biases, theoretical assumptions about trait stability, and cultural limitations call for a careful and critical approach to their application. Recognising these issues highlights the need for ongoing refinement and diversification in test design, ensuring that these assessments can more accurately reflect the complexities of human psychology. For personality tests to maintain their relevance and validity, they must evolve to address the diverse realities and cultural contexts of the individuals they aim to assess.

References

Bleidorn, W., Schwaba, T., Zheng, A., Hopwood, C. J., Sosa, S. S., Roberts, B. W., & Briley, D. A. (2022). Personality stability and change: A meta-analysis of longitudinal studies. Psychological Bulletin, 148(7-8). https://doi.org/10.1037/bul0000365

Gudjonsson, G. H., & Young, S. (2011). Personality and deception. Are suggestibility, compliance and acquiescence related to socially desirable responding? Personality and Individual Differences, 50(2), 192–195. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2010.09.024

Henrich, J., Heine, S. J., & Norenzayan, A. (2010). The Weirdest People in the World? SSRN Electronic Journal, 33(2-3). https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1601785

Morales-Vives, F., Vigil-Colet, A., Lorenzo-Seva, U., & Ruiz-Pamies, M. (2014). How social desirability and acquiescence affects the age–personality relationship. Personality and Individual Differences, 60, S16. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2013.07.370

Muthukrishna, M., Bell, A. V., Henrich, J., Curtin, C. M., Gedranovich, A., McInerney, J., & Thue, B. (2020). Beyond Western, Educated, Industrial, Rich, and Democratic (WEIRD) Psychology: Measuring and Mapping Scales of Cultural and Psychological Distance. Psychological Science, 31(6), 095679762091678. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797620916782

Wiener, I. B., & Greene, R. L. (2017). Handbook of personality assessment. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.