Archive for August, 2015
In the first installment of our podcast series, CTI Spotlights, we interview Bebe Smith. Bebe is a clinical assistant professor of social work and psychiatry at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She was the project director for Critical Time Intervention: Local Pilot and Statewide Championing, a project funded by the Kate B. Reynolds Charitable Trust, from July 2012 to June 2015. She is currently working with the NC Division of Mental Health, Developmental Disabilities and Substance Abuse Services to support the expansion of CTI in NC.
A soon-to-be published article in Psychiatric Services investigates the impact of a brief version of CTI (B-CTI) on the occurrence of psychiatric readmission of adults with serious mental illness.
SMINET: Applying Evidence to Improve Care and Outcomes in Severe Mental Illness builds on an established multi-state consortium to increase uptake, on a broad scale, of selected evidence-based practices in the care of persons with severe mental illness that are particularly high-impact targets for improving long-term health outcomes. In this context, CTI is being promoted as a potential strategy to reduce the risk rehospitalization among high-risk patients following discharge from acute psychiatric treatment.
Project Director Mark Graham states, “Our program allows for our clinicians to assess clients and provide personalized treatment, so our clients get the intervention that is needed rather than something prescribed. We can address individual needs, and this results in a high level of buy-in and engagement.”
Representatives from the seven cities of the NIMH-funded RedeAmericas, including Sarah Conover, director of the CTI Global Network, attended the annual meeting last week at the University of Chile Salvador Allende School of Public Health in Santiago.
