Managing substance use for clients with serious mental illnesses: Knowledge, attitude, and training challenges among outpatient behavioral health providers in California, Ohio, and New York.

PURPOSE: Individuals with serious mental illness have high rates of substance use. The most commonly used substances among this population are alcohol and cannabis, and whether clinical providers delivering mental health services feel adequately prepared to address substance use is unclear. While information about the effects of alcohol are well established, the effects of cannabis are less well known and staff may feel less confident in their abilities to assess its use and may rely on more informal sources to learn about it. METHODS: Mental health agencies in three states (California, Ohio, and New York) surveyed their staff (n =717) to explore their knowledge, training, and expertise in assessment of substance use generally as well as cannabis and alcohol specifically. RESULTS: Overall, providers felt more prepared to address their clients' alcohol use than cannabis use. In between-state comparisons, California providers felt significantly less well prepared to assess, discuss, and refer their clients to treatment compared to Ohio and New York providers. Using a series of multi-categorical mediation models, we confirmed that deficits in training for these specific substances largely accounted for between-state differences in assessment, capacity, and treatment. CONCLUSIONS: Substance use training to address the service needs of individuals with co-occurring disorders is insufficient and a significant need exists for systemic changes to workforce training of community mental health providers.

Provider and consumer perspectives of community mental health services: Implications for consumer-driven care.

Public mental health services in the community are broad and continue to expand to address the multiple issues faced by those with serious mental illnesses. However, few studies examine and contrast how helpful consumers and providers find the spectrum of services. The present study examines the services at community mental health service clinics (CMHCs) from the perspectives of providers and consumers. There were 351 consumers and 147 providers from 15 CMHCs who rated and ranked the helpfulness of 24 types of common services. All of the agencies were participating in a Practice-Based Research Network (PBRN). Social support was the highest rated service by both types of respondents, and the creation of a welcoming environment was the highest ranked service by both. There were also areas of disagreement. Consumers identified traditional mental health services (individual therapy and medication services) as being most helpful to them whereas providers selected longer-term services that promote self-reliance (e.g., securing housing, and promoting self-sufficiency) as the most helpful. Understanding how consumers and providers perceive the range of CMHC services provided in usual care is important to develop new targets for intervention. A welcoming milieu and providing social support appear important to both, but significant differences exist between these groups regarding other aspects of services. This holds implications for the design and implementation of consumer-driven services. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

The Recovery-Oriented Care Collaborative: A Practice-Based Research Network to Improve Care for People With Serious Mental Illnesses.

Practice-based research networks (PBRNs) create continuous collaborations among academic researchers and practitioners. Most PBRNs have operated in primary care, and less than 5% of federally registered PBRNs include mental health practitioners. In 2012 the first PBRN in the nation focused on individuals with serious mental illnesses-the Recovery-Oriented Care Collaborative-was established in Los Angeles. This column describes the development of this innovative PBRN through four phases: building an infrastructure, developing a research study, executing the study, and consolidating the PBRN. Key lessons learned are also described, such as the importance of actively engaging direct service providers and clients.