Different Ways to Use the Tools

The Green Light survey is most effective if the process is designed by a team that includes autistic people, people with learning disabilities and relatives as well as some senior staff in the mental health organisation. That way, the results are more likely to be meaningful and the action plan that arises from the survey results is more likely to be implemented. You can read some stories of how it has been used in mental health services on the Stories of Change page.

The survey tools can be used in a number of ways as described below.

Personal Reflection

  • Answer the questions in the survey on your own as a way of reflecting on your own knowledge, skills and practice.

Run a survey

  • Consider whether you want to ask more than one group in your organisation to complete the survey. You may find that people using the service give different scores to the staff, frontline staff have different views than managers or people who have been around a long time hold different views to newcomers.
  • Ask each person who will be participating to complete the survey privately.
  • If you choose to use the Online Survey 2022 there are instructions on how to use it here. You will send each participant a standard invitation to go online and submit their scores. Once this is done, you can collect the analysis charts, discuss their implications and develop an action plan for your team or organisation.
  • Repeat the exercise a year later to track progress over time.

Team development

  • Identify your team – it might be a clinical team that provides mental health services, or perhaps a team of commissioners, advocates, people using services or others with an interest in the quality of the mental health service. Arrange a special event to set up the survey or put it on the agenda of a meeting that is taking place already, like a regular team meeting. Consider bringing all stakeholders together to do the survey.
  • Choose the right survey tool from the selection offered on the Choose the right survey tool page. You may want to focus on the experiences of a particular group or address a particular issue that has come to light in your service.
  • You may want to ask everyone to answer the survey questions privately before you have a team discussion. This is essential if you are using the Online Survey 2022, but can also help individual team members to reflect on the issues before they attend the meeting.
  • If individuals have submitted their individual scores, summarise the results into a short report ready for the team discussion. If you have used the Online Survey 2022, this is done for you.
  • In your team meeting, as a way to start the discussion off, invite group members to take turns suggesting which answer is the right one or what action needs to be taken.

Review your service

  • Invite a good facilitator, preferably someone who combines enthusiasm with knowledge to help press your team to make the most of the survey process. But if you can’t find anyone, don’t let that put you off doing the process yourselves.
  • Make a record of the evidence and reasons why you chose your answers, so that you can review progress next time and see whether things have really changed.
  • Seek consensus about the actions you will take in response to the survey findings and work out who will do what by when. If you honestly do not have the time, energy and commitment to implement any actions (perhaps your jobs list is already too long), then there is little point in surveying views at this time. But please do it soon!

Learn about other teams

  • Add a column called ‘What other teams have done’ and collect examples of good practice to learn from.
  • Form a benchmarking club with similar teams and share your answers with each other. Celebrate your successes and let others spur you on where necessary.
  • If you identify an item where everyone scores poorly, discuss with your wider colleagues whether there is a need to generate central resources that will help everyone improve.

Prepare reports for others

  • Add a column called ‘What we have done through the year’ to remind yourselves of what you have achieved.

Change the form or the process

  • If you dislike the survey questions, you can change them. It will be harder to make comparisons with other teams, but you may have a better discussion.
  • If there are individual questions on the survey that do not fit with your mission, simply set them aside and focus on the items that do.