Last month, we highlighted the ways we plan to enhance our focus on providing  services. This month, we continue our series with a deeper look into how we are expanding the scope of our services to include individuals with more complex needs.

By Anne Bakar, É«ÖÐÉ« President & CEO

Over the past 30 years, É«ÖÐÉ« has developed a specialized reputation for serving individuals with more serious and complex mental health needs. These are individuals that often come out of acute care settings or state hospitals, and have a hard time finding appropriate treatment in the community. These individuals frequently incur expensive system-wide costs due to repeated hospitalizations and/or incarcerations.

É«ÖÐÉ« has provided many successful interventions to serve individuals with complex needs through evidence-based Assertive Community Treatment (ACT) programs, and our Recovery-Centered Clinical System (RCCS). These service models have reduced system-wide costs and have helped thousands of individuals each year regain their sense of hope, acquire stable housing, reduce their substance use, and move forward towards their educational or vocational aspirations.

At the same time, our success in achieving these goals has been limited by our expertise in serving the whole person, whether their needs include justice involvement,
co-occurring substance use, developmental disabilities, or co-occurring physical health care problems. Our ongoing commitment to broaden our capacity to meet these needs is at the heart of our new mission statement when we reference engaging those with "complex needs."

This newsletter is specifically focused on justice-involved endeavors: How do we better serve individuals with serious and complex needs coming out of the criminal justice system?

We hope you enjoy hearing about some of our early work, and look forward to sharing our continued journey in this area of great national importance.  Please feel free to reach out to us and let us know your thoughts and ideas.