While the goals of each individual are unique in detail, people with severe mental illness desire the same core outcomes that we all want:

• To live independently in a place we call home
• To gain an education, whether for career enhancement or personal growth
• To have a job that enhances our income, provides a means to make a contribution, and enables us to receive recognition
• To have meaningful relationships
• To avoid the spirit-breaking experiences of hospitalization, incarceration, institutionalization, homelessness or substance abuse

If this is true, then mental health services should be focused on the most powerful methods available to help consumers achieve these outcomes. Consumer outcomes are the bottom-line for mental health services, like profit is in business.

Kansas’ publicly-funded adult mental health system is committed to making Evidence Based Practices (EBP) available to all of our SPMI consumers. Through our community – state partnership involving consumers, families and providers, we will seek further implementation of the EBPs that have the most rigorous research, and encourage development of practices that are emerging in order to gather more research about what works. We will endeavor to set realistic fidelity standards while carefully monitoring consumer quality outcomes.