Strategic and Professional Advisory Services

The vendor required to provide strategic and professional advisory services for include:
•    Mental health and addiction strategic advisory services
•    Project implementation support;
•    Evaluations and applied research; and
•    Medical writers.
- Mental health and addiction strategic advisory services
1. Quality standards
•    Development of standards, criteria, and guidelines to advance quality and effectiveness in mental health and addiction services. 
•    Collaborate with a range of stakeholders to ensure all standards are grounded in evidence and reflect leading practices. 
•    Support the process by facilitating stakeholder input, developing documentation, supporting implementation, and contributing to periodic reviews and updates as new knowledge emerges.
2. Jurisdictional scans and environmental reviews
•    Conduct wide-ranging jurisdictional, environmental, and mapping scans to examine external mental health and addiction systems, as well as broader social and health sectors, both within state, and internationally. 
•    Assess a variety of policies, programs, innovations, and systemic approaches that demonstrate best and emerging practices relevant to the state context. 
•    Synthesize findings into accessible recommendations for system-wide planning, strategic decision-making, and policy development. 
•    Support effective knowledge translation by preparing tailored reports, presentations, and facilitating stakeholder engagement and learning sessions to ensure insights are actionable and widely disseminated.
3. Pathways
•    Design comprehensive care pathways that support individuals across the continuum of mental health and addiction services in state. 
•    This includes mapping existing service journeys, identifying critical intervention points, and integrating evidence-based practices to ensure seamless transitions between services and providers. 
•    Provide guidance for ongoing evaluation and continuous improvement of care pathways to enhance outcomes and system efficiency.
4. Facilitation and support
•    Organize and facilitate multi-stakeholder engagement initiatives—including expert groups, workshops, consultations, and roundtables – providing secretarial support through agenda management, documentation, and effective coordination to ensure productive collaboration and outcomes. 
•    Lead and oversee stakeholder engagement efforts to ensure that project deliverables meet stakeholder requirements, fostering constructive relationships and supporting overall project success.
5. Capacity planning
•    Lead efforts to forecast future service needs for state mental health and addiction system. 
•    Use research and data analysis to predict demand, identify gaps, and suggest ways to improve and make the system more sustainable. 
•    This includes reviewing current resources and workforce, planning for future staffing needs, and supporting training and development plans. 
•    Summarize findings in clear reports and presentations to help inform policy decisions and strategic planning for the province.
- Project implementation support services
1. Project management
•    Provide comprehensive project management services, including ongoing monitoring, tracking, and reporting to ensure all projects are delivered on time, within budget, and meet established objectives and performance standards.
2. Policies
•    Design and update organizational policies, procedures, processes, and structures to enhance operational efficiency and ensure alignment with best practices and regulatory requirements.
3. Organizational design
•    Conduct in-depth reviews of organizational structures and governance frameworks to identify improvement opportunities and strengthen overall organizational effectiveness.
4. Proposals
•    Assist with developing proposals by collaborating with internal teams and stakeholders; leading the proposal writing and submission process—including drafting narratives, budgets, and supporting documentation—as well as coordinating review and approval workflows; developing compelling cases for support using evidence, data, and stories; tracking proposal outcomes, and supporting reporting obligations.
5. Position descriptions
•    Develop comprehensive and role-specific position descriptions to support effective recruitment, performance management, and workforce planning.
6. Strategic and business planning
•    Assist in the development of strategic plans, business plans, operational plans, research plans, annual reports, quality improvement plans, and risk management plans for agency.
- Evaluation and applied research
•    Develop comprehensive evaluation frameworks tailored to program objectives and context, ensuring alignment with best practice standards in the mental health and addiction sector. 
•    Utilize logic models, theory of change, and other program theory-driven approaches to clarify evaluation questions and outcomes of interest. 
•    Engage a diverse range of stakeholders—including service users, front-line staff, leadership, and community partners— through structured interviews, focus groups, and workshops to capture multiple perspectives.
•    Design and implement both quantitative (e.g., standardized outcome surveys, validated measurement tools) and qualitative (e.g., in-depth interviews, thematic analysis) data collection strategies, as appropriate to the evaluation context. 
•    Apply mixed methods approaches to triangulate findings, enhance validity, and provide nuanced, actionable recommendations for program improvement and policy development.
•    Carry out systematic literature reviews to synthesize current knowledge, identify gaps, and inform the design of research and evaluation activities. 
•    Perform environmental scans, including jurisdictional reviews, policy analysis, and stakeholder mapping, to contextualize findings and benchmark against leading practices. 
•    Leverage advanced statistical methods (e.g., regression analysis, multivariate techniques) and qualitative analytic frameworks (e.g., grounded theory, content analysis) to rigorously analyze data and interpret results. 
•    Translate research findings into practical recommendations, supporting core and its partners in making informed decisions regarding program design, service delivery, and system transformation.
•    Collaborate with stakeholders – including service users, frontline staff, leadership, and community partners – to ensure that policy recommendations are evidence-based and reflect diverse perspectives. 
•    Develop clear, actionable advice that supports government decision-making in the mental health and addiction sector, ensuring alignment with best practices and current research.
- Medical writers
•    Prepare manuscripts for submission to peer-reviewed journals, adhering to journal-specific guidelines and reporting standards. 
•    Draft research summaries, technical reports, and policy briefs that translate complex findings into clear, actionable recommendations for practitioners, policy makers, and the public. 
•    Respond to feedback from peer reviewers, funders, and stakeholders to ensure clarity, rigor, and relevance of all scientific and technical communications.

- Contract Period/Term: 1 year