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May 2, 2002 - Kansas Mental Health Centers Participate in International Study
The Kansas Department of Social and Rehabilitation Services (SRS) was recently selected to participate in an international study that will help implement services found to be effective in the treatment and recovery process of people with severe and mental illness. SRS Secretary Janet Schalansky announced today that five Kansas Community Mental Health Centers (CMHCs) have been selected to be part of the study.
In the field of mental health, researchers and practitioners are constantly seeking ways to improve services provided to clients. In efforts to assist mental health agencies provide the best services available, a group of researchers and practitioners at the Dartmouth Psychiatric Research Center in Lebanon New Hampshire, created a project that will provide state and community mental health agencies with the tools and strategies needed for implementing evidence based practices into their everyday programs and services. This project is fully supported by both federal mental health funding sources and private foundations such as Johnson and Johnson.
SRS was selected along with six other states and the Netherlands, and is the only mid west state to participate in the project. Four of the CMHCs involved in this study include: Bert Nash Mental Health Center of Lawrence; Wyandot County Mental Health Center of Kansas City; Franklin County Mental Health Center of Ottawa; and Comcare Mental Health Center of Wichita. A fifth center will soon be designated to join the study.
Each group of participants could choose from five evidence based practices. Kansas CMHCs will focus on Supported Employment programs for people with severe mental illness, which help those who want to work, find jobs in the competitive employment market. Programs like these often help people reduce their reliance on state and federal support, while aiding in their recovery process. Kansas CMHCs will also focus on Dual Diagnosis programming. These programs address symptoms related to mental illness and substance addiction at the same time.
The CMHCs will spend six months building consensus for program change. They then have one year to implement the evidence-based practices using education and training materials provided by the Dartmouth group. Strategies used by the centers to implement services into their agencies will be on the cutting edge of research and practice.
Secretary Schalansky said, "At the end of this project, the selected sites in Kansas will have made major improvements to services for people with mental illness and will act as model programs for mental health services across the United States." Secretary Schalansky added that she was hopeful that these sites will assist other Kansas mental health centers with efficient and effective implementation of these same practices.
The efforts in Kansas are
being coordinated through the SRS division of Mental Health/ Substance
Abuse Prevention, Treatment and Recovery (MH/SAPTR), and Kansas Rehabilitation
Services. Education, training, as well as research and technical assistance
are being provided to mental health centers by the Office of Mental Health
Research and Training, at the University of Kansas School of Social Welfare.