In This Issue: Recent Findings from CMHEI - Featured Interview with Dr. Katherine Boydell, Family Study

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Recent Findings from CMHEI

Welcome to the fourth newsletter of the Community Mental Health Evaluation Initiative!

This multisite study began in 1998 and is following over 800 consumers of mental health services and supports for a period of 18 months. It knits together six individual evaluation studies of intensive case management, assertive community treatment, crisis intervention, consumer and family initiatives. A seventh project is developing a tool to measure the critical ingredients of community support programs. All the programs are collecting a common set of information from participants, providing a unique opportunity to describe and compare consumers of very diverse services and supports. Our goal is to better understand who the programs are serving and their impact, and to compare the Ontario experience with other jurisdictions.

We are pleased that the Initiative has created a network of experienced researchers and community partners in Ontario. Consumers and family members have made valuable contributions in defining research questions, interviewing and assisting in the interpretation of findings. The Initiative is funded by the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long Term Care.

The CMHEI is entering an exciting period because data collection is almost complete and analyses have begun. Initiative researchers and their program partners met recently to share and discuss preliminary findings.

Overall, the evidence is consistent and positive, indicating that the investment in community mental health programs is paying off for persons with serious and persistent mental illness, including those who are homeless.

Preliminary findings from across projects indicate that:

• Individuals using mental health services and supports are showing improvement in their community functioning, have decreased symptoms and use of substances, and are experiencing fewer crisis episodes and days in hospital.
• Because somewhat different populations are accessing and being helped by the different types of community mental health programs, maintaining a comprehensive range of options is essential for consumer choice.
• Consumers using these programs (both service and peer support) are living in impoverished circumstances. Most lack employment and are managing on inadequate incomes and social support.
• It is important not to underestimate the place of healthy communities and the basics of housing, income, medical and dental care in the well being of people with mental illness living in the community. This newsletter briefly describes each project's main objective and selected emerging findings. Subsequent newsletters will highlight individual projects, providing more in-depth coverage about study methods and findings.

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