When policy makers consult professional groups in public policy formation: Transversal consultation in the Belgian Mental Health Sector

This contribution focuses on a policy consultation process: the “transversal consultation”. Launched in 2007 in the Belgian Mental Health Sector, this consultation had to capture the experience-based knowledge of service users and professionals involved in local projects aimed at experimenting working conditions in mental health care networks. This policy challenges the existing hospital-centred model of care, characterized by a medical approach and professional specialization, by promoting instead a pluridisciplinary approach in mental health care networks.In this contribution, a case of this transversal consultation process is analysed by relying on a theoretical framework drawn from the Sociology of Organizations and the Sociology of Public Action. The analysis emphasizes the strategic use that is made of the consultation process, and stresses the gap observed between its formal objective and its perceived outcome: more than producing experience-based knowledge about mental health care networks, the transversal consultation challenged power relations sustaining the current organization of the mental health system. It shortly discusses, as a conclusion, the outcome of the initiative.