The East New York Health Hub: Realizing the Promise of Whole Health

Over the last few decades, there has been an increasing focus on health care reform and bending the cost curve through a combination of new approaches including social determinants of health, trauma-informed treatment, health equity, patient engagement and integrated care. While these elements have...

Social Isolation: A Solution-Focused Approach

Doris has been living in her studio apartment in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn for the past 15 years. She obtained this apartment after finding herself homeless following the breakup of her marriage and other stressors she was experiencing. Doris is quite humble as she describes how her...

ICL Housing: Like a Nice Piece of CAKE

As the story goes, at ICL we’ve been saying for quite a while, that Housing is much more than just a bed, some clean sheets and case management services. At ICL we believe that Housing is far more complex and that at the very core of all of our Housing is hope and relationship building. Today,...

The New Normal: How We Learned to Love and Understand Data

Data. The world today is all about data. With the transformation of the Medicaid payment system into a more value-based approach, the need for understanding data has taken a higher priority at many agencies, including ICL. Managed Care Organizations (MCOs) are making arrangements with agencies that...

The Right Support

Creating an atmosphere of inclusion and acceptance for all people coming to an organization for help begins with the core values of that agency. Here, at ICL, we believe in and offer person-centered, recovery-oriented, trauma-informed, and integrated physical and behavioral healthcare. No matter a...

Maintaining a Focus on Recovery for People Within the Supported Housing System

The changes that have taken place over the last few years in the behavioral health field are affecting the way staff view “clients” as well as the way these same “clients” are being helped to view themselves. There is a swirl of information and expectations, and government funding is...

Effective Supervision: An Essential Component to Enhancing Consumer Outcomes

The behavioral healthcare industry is facing a monumental time of change. The mental health field in particular is faced with putting more responsibility on consumers to drive their own treatment. No longer, it seems, will a person with mental health challenges be cared for in a prescriptive, or...

Making Primary Health Issues a Part of Your Wellness Program

When we were children, annual trips to the doctor were made by our parents or guardians, but as we grow into adult life, making routine appointments may fall to the wayside. Instead of scheduling visits just for wellness maintenance, we may only get around to going when we have the flu or want a...

Changing Physician Roles and Relationships in Integrated Care

Unacceptably high mortality and morbidity among people with serious mental illness have prompted a call to action for behavioral health providers from all disciplines. Included among these providers are physicians and other prescribers, who have an important part to play in the integration...

Trauma-Informed Care Leads to More Integrated Care

Our inattention to the emotional dimensions of health and illness is a public health perfect storm, especially for the mentally ill. This group of people experiences high rates of illness, suffers greatly, uses an enormous amount of our precious healthcare dollars, and dies 25 years earlier than...