In This Issue: Evaluating Intensive Case Management - Family Initiatives - Costing Strategy in the Multisite Study - Data Quality Corner - Featured Tool: Multnomah Community Ability Scale - Project News

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Featured Project: Evaluating Intensive Case Management for Persons with Severe Mental Illness Who Are Homeless

A research team lead by Tim Aubry at Ottawa University is studying the Community Support Services program of the Ottawa-Carleton branch of the Canadian Mental Health Association (CMHA). This program offers individualized, practical support to persons with severe mental illness living in the community who are homeless or at risk of being homeless. Using a true experimental design, the study is comparing clients receiving case management services to a similar group only receiving outreach services. It is expected that people who receive the long-term, intensive support will likely do better on a range of outcomes, including severity of illness, adaptation to community living and quality of life.

In addition to being part of the first multisite study in mental health in Canada, there are a number of innovative characteristics of this project that make it particularly exciting. First, thanks to the cooperation of the Ottawa-Carleton CMHA, the project is able to use a true experimental design, in which participants are randomly assigned to either receive intensive case management or to continue with a short-term housing outreach service. This means that the researchers will be able to attribute any differences between the two groups to the influence of the program, which is a rare opportunity in community-based research.

Second, this research project is planning to follow participants for two years, which is a little longer than most studies of case management. We are also collecting comprehensive information about the costs of providing services to this population, and are looking at the process of case management (i.e., how the program is actually implemented), in addition to participants' outcomes. In doing this, we are hoping to be able to explain why the treatment group is doing better than the control group, if in fact it is.

Finally, we appreciate the opportunity to have so many consumers and students involved in the research project, as research assistants, program staff, Advisory Group members, Research Team members, etc. While this is becoming more typical of community-based research, it seems clear to us that the involvement of consumers is making this a better, more relevant project, and we're appreciating the chance to train up-and-coming researchers and practitioners in community mental health.

To date, we have received consent from 86 people to become participants in the research, and have had 72 people assigned to one of the two study groups (i.e., treatment or control). We have conducted 63 baseline interviews, and 33 follow-up interviews. These interviews are held in community settings of the participant's choice, such as drop-ins, community centres, coffee shops, etc., and have generally been quite interesting for both interviewer and participants.

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