Embodying policy-making in mental health: the implementation of Partners in Recovery

This paper starts from the premise that embodied knowledge is critical to understanding health policy implementation. We explore this notion through a qualitative investigation of the way that knowledge has functioned in the implementation of an Australian mental health policy, Partners in Recovery (PIR). Analysis uses the theoretical lens of interpretive policy analysis and the `embodied, inscribed, enacted' knowledge schema developed by Freeman and Sturdy [(2014a). Introduction: Knowledge in policy - embodied, inscribed, enacted. In R. Freeman & S. Sturdy (Eds.), Knowledge in policy: Embodied, inscribed, enacted (pp. 1-19). Bristol: Policy Press]. Our analysis reveals a policy problem centred around difficulties of coordination where the inscribed solution lies in individuals who must implement the PIR program in local areas. Our interviews with PIR consortium members and stakeholders show that this implementation happens through the enactment of embodied knowledge. However this implementation is not straightforward and we point to difficulties arising from the centrality of embodied processes in implementation, related to the localisation of systems knowledge in individuals and structural devaluation of certain types of knowledge over others.