The purpose of the ACT and ACT-L Program is to serve patients in need who are not accessing the traditional Mental Health Center Programs, by providing a comprehensive approach to the delivery of services.
ACT involves a team of professionals whose job duties focus solely on providing service to urban patients. Because of their mental illness, many individuals have difficulty functioning in the community. Patients in the ACT and ACT-L program have histories of long and frequent hospitalizations and limited success with independent living, and finding and maintaining employment. They also over utilize hospital emergency rooms to treat their psychiatric illness. A host of supportive individually designed interventions are required to maintain these individuals in the community, which is what the ACT or ACT-Like Team is designed to do.
A comprehensive approach to assessment, treatment, and rehabilitation is a feature of this program in which the ACT team assumes full responsibility for delivering, coordinating and/or acquiring services in a wide variety of areas, not simply mental health care. Primary health, housing, employment, and access to entitlements such as Social Security are example of psychosocial variables, which contribute to overall improvement of a person with mental illness, and all are areas in which the ACT team may get involved.
Program Participant Criteria:
- Adults with serious, long term mental illness
- High users of inpatient and emergency room services
- Persons who have not responded to traditional case management services
- Persons who fail to keep scheduled appointments
