ABSTRACT
Individuals with serious mental illness transitioning from state psychiatric hospitals to community living need specialized skills to enter community housing programs. There are few examples of best practice hospital group programs to improve community living skills. To address this gap, the authors developed a community skills training and discharge readiness program, Tools for Moving On (TFMO), adapted from materials from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration Permanent Supportive Housing: Tools for Tenants toolkit. The new program uses facilitator and participant handouts, implementation recommendations, and covers four topics, including housing choices, housing preferences, tenancy skills, and support needs. Adapting existing evidence-based practices for individuals in state psychiatric hospitals may aid in successful discharge and community living and support nurses in their efforts for discharge. [Journal of Psychosocial Nursing and Mental Health Services, 57(8), 23-29.].
Subject(s)
Curriculum , Hospitals, Psychiatric , Housing , Independent Living , Inpatients , Patient Discharge , Humans , Mental Disorders/therapy , Patient Education as Topic , Psychiatric NursingABSTRACT
With the growth of community support programs the role of the state psychiatric hospital has changed. Reduced funding levels have resulted in overcrowding, inadequate staffing and ineffective programming. In order to improve the quality of care and introduce more psychiatric rehabilitation-oriented activities into hospital programming, a large state hospital and a state health sciences university have entered into a time-limited collaborative partnership. This paper describes that partnership and its attempt to improve staff competencies, enhance service delivery and integrate a more rehabilitation-oriented philosophy of care into the hospital through undergraduate education, in-service training, program development, staff mentoring and organizational change activities.
