Mission:

To develop and implement high quality, cost efficient, comprehensive services for adults with severe and persistent mental illness.

Description:

The program assists individuals in achieving and sustaining the highest quality of life consistent with their abilities, needs, personal ambitions, and available resources. We provide opportunities for work, learning, recreation, and community living as directed by client choices. Individualized services emphasize health, wellness and recovery. Treatment goals are directed by the individual and attained by evidence-based models of care. There is a focus on attaining life skills which minimizes the need for hospitalizations and involuntary treatment in both inpatient and outpatient settings. All diagnoses of the individual are recognized, both mental illness and substance abuse, and are treated concurrently, within the same treatment team.

Services:

Service planning, coordination, and outreach; case management and referrals (assistance accessing benefits), community-based supports, social support services and outreach; assistance with activities of daily living, socialization skills, community integration; finding and maintaining adequate housing; health education (mental illness issues, medications, emotions, self-confidence); psychiatric evaluation and medication review and monitoring; emergency services; vocational services (employment preparation, job development, on-going job support); integrated dual diagnosis treatment; individual and group outpatient counseling (recovery and wellness groups); stress management skills class and peer supports; family psycho-education and support and dialectical behavioral treatment.

Who can access:

Individuals 18 years of age or older, who meet the specific eligibility criteria set forth by the Department of Mental Health. The criteria must be met in three categories: diagnostic criteria, recent treatment history, and level of impaired role functioning. Although persons with primary diagnosis of a developmental disability, head injuries, Alzheimer’s Disease, or Organic Brain Syndrome frequently have similar treatment needs, they are not included in this definition.

Consumers are not eligible for Community Support Program (CSP) services if they are under the age of 18 or if they have a primary diagnosis of a Developmental Disability, Alzheimer’s Disease, or Organic Brain Syndrome.

Specific Programmatic Criteria

Most clinical services are available to all individuals in the Community Support Program if clinically indicated by the individualized treatment plan developed in collaboration between the person and the treatment team. All Community Support Program consumers, regardless of need, are assigned to a primary case manager and are seen at least annually by a member of the medical team. The only service that has a specific criteria is the Dialectic Behavioral Treatment Program, for which a consumer needs both a diagnosis of Borderline Personality Disorder, and to have made a one year commitment to abide by the protocols developed by Marsha Linehan, the founder of Dialectical Behavioral Treatment (DBT). Other services, including vocational services and group therapy, are available to consumers based on clinical need and are accessed through referrals to the specific program.