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VNSW Mental Health Home Care Program: Transitioning Back Home Following Hospitalization
It is becoming increasingly understood and appreciated just how much healing and comfort extend beyond physical well-being. There is a decided mental well-being component as well, recognized by Visiting Nurse Services in Westchester (VNSW), the White Plains-based home health care agency that...
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Where Do We Go from Here? Follow-Up Care from Psychiatric Hospitalization
Psychiatric hospitalization is a disruptive event for any individual, especially for a child and family. However, brief the hospital stay – and stays are very brief these days – the person, the child, and the family has to cope with medications, restoring relationships, making an awkward and...
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AAS Guidelines Help Identify Risk of Suicide for Inpatient and Residential Patients
These recommendations are for consideration prior to pass, trial leave or discharge and are appropriate for inpatient psychiatric units in general hospitals, psychiatric hospitals, and residential treatment centers. These recommendations are not comprehensive treatment guidelines regarding suicidal...
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After the Hospital the Real Treatment Begins
It is often in the period following an inpatient psychiatric hospitalization that the “real treatment” begins. After stabilizing the most severe symptoms that compromise a patient’s functioning, the patient and his or her therapist must then collaborate on the next steps that will help to...
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Assisted Outpatient Treatment: A Helping Hand in the Community
Living with a loved one afflicted with a mental illness who does not comply with his or her treatment plan can have a tremendous negative impact on the family as well as the individual. Assisted Outpatient Treatment, or “Kendra’s Law,” is a valuable tool for families and others who seek to...
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Building a Responsive, Accountable, Recovery-Focused System of Care
I wish to briefly describe what is on the horizon for the Adult Mental Health system in our state. The New York State public mental health system is among the most well-funded in the country, yet outcomes are of concern. In the middle are people who struggle with mental illness and want to lead...
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Understanding and Treating Posttraumatic Stress Disorder
Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is an anxiety disorder that can occur after you have been through a traumatic event. A traumatic event is something horrible and scary that you see or that happens to you. During this type of event, you think that your life or others’ lives are in danger. You...
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Treating Trauma Survivors in a Family Mental Health Clinic
Westchester Jewish Community Services’ (WJCS) Treatment Center for Trauma and Abuse has been in the forefront in Westchester County in providing child and adult survivors of child sexual abuse with effective treatment for almost thirty years. The program began in the Hartsdale clinic with just...
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Preparing Communities for The Elder Boom: Mental Health Matters
Happily, a number of efforts are now underway to prepare communities and the aging services system for the elder boom. Sadly, mental health doesn’t figure into most of them in any significant way despite the simple and obvious fact that you cannot age well without your mental health. The new...
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Principles of Group Work with Children and Youth Trauma Survivors
Group work is indispensable for children and youth in the aftermath of traumatic events. Group work can serve as a counterforce to bleak outcomes that result from isolation in the aftermath of disaster. It can help to empower young people by restoring human dignity, building coping skills, helping...
