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Integrating Peer Wellness Services into Housing First
Since 1992, Pathways to Housing has provided individuals who experience homelessness and mental health conditions immediate access to permanent, independent housing and consumer-driven supports. As a Housing First agency, part of Pathways’ mission is to end homelessness; however, this is just the...
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Staff Wellness and Self-Care: One Agency’s Model
A rather unsettling fact about American society is that within it there exists a high rate of violence and abuse. According to Kessler et al (1995), 60.7% of men and 51.2% of women will experience at least one traumatic event in their lifetime. Given this fact, Kessler et al also state that of this...
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Cultural Competence and Recovery
It seems to me that within the behavioral health service field, cultural competence is an approach designed to improve access, engagement, retention, and to contextually improve the quality of life of individuals and families. Within a cultural competence framework, services facilitate...
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Wellness Self-Management
Wellness Self-Management (WSM) is a curriculum-based clinical practice designed to assist adults to effectively manage serious mental health problems. The WSM program was based on Illness Management and Recovery (IMR), one of the nationally recognized evidence-based practices for adults with...
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Exploring Creative Approaches to Improve Health and Wellness
It is widely recognized that a strong connection between physical health and mental health exists. But where do we go from here? What creative approaches can health care providers explore for improving general health and mental wellness to enhance recovery? With a growing shift toward...
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Wellness Initiatives for People Living with Mental Illness
According to New York State’s Commissioner of Mental Health, Michael Hogan PhD, “There really is no recovery without some overall experience of wellness. There is no wellness without positive mental health. We need integration of care in every place. We have to approach it from a lot of...
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Physical Health Should Be a Priority of the Mental Health System and Mental Health Should Be a Priority of the Health System
Over the past couple of years, it has become increasingly clear that physical health needs to be a priority of the mental health system and that mental health needs to be a priority of the health system. Why it took so long to realize this is not entirely clear to me, because the basic facts have...
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Integrative Healing: Linking Emotional and Physical Wellness to Recovery
Recovery from mental illness is a complex process marked by ebbs and flows of wellness and relapse. Furthermore, it involves the interaction of many internal (i.e., physical and psychological) and external (i.e., housing and family) systems. Our past two articles have focused primarily on how...
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Improving Cultural and Linguistic Competence: The Case of Integrated Physical and Mental Health Care
Health is not possible without mental health, and quality mental health care cannot be achieved without culturally and linguistically relevant services. These are the two principles that guide the work of the Center of Excellence for Cultural Competence at New York State Psychiatric Institute...
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Health Integration Activities in the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene
In recent years, health has come to be recognized more as a state of physical, mental, behavioral and social well-being, and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity. The link between physical and behavioral health has been measured in New York’s own population. According to the 2004 New...
