Partners in Integration: Addressing Need by Supporting NYC Workers

In today’s evolving healthcare system, there is a growing need for an integrated healthcare workforce to better address the needs of patients with complex and interrelated medical and behavioral health conditions. However, workforce development supporting skills enhancement around integrated...

The State of Children’s Mental Health and Associated Costs of a Fragmented System

Past public policy has focused mostly on children’s mental health issues—and with good reason. While 1 out of 10 children has a serious emotional disturbance, only 20% ever receive treatment. Children with mental health issues have the highest school dropout rate among all disability groups,...

Implementing Best Practices – Seven Core Processes

Implementing best practice care for persons struggling with mental illness and substance use in real world settings can be challenging. At the Institute for Community Living (ICL), where we provide behavioral and physical health care for a widely diverse population and place strong emphasis on...

It’s About Time

Back in the height of what was called the “Humane Care” period, state hospital institutions took care, to the limits of their abilities, of the full spectrum of people’s needs. While one can certainly look back and question the quality of the care and the enormous personal consequences of...

Healthy Living: A Self-Management Toolkit Promoting Full Recovery

If you have ever tried to quit smoking or lose weight, you might recall the difficulty you had sticking to your goal. Add the challenge of managing a serious mental illness (SMI) and these health goals can become daunting. However, the pursuit of these goals has become central to addressing the...

The Role of Intimacy on the Road to Recovery

The crucial role of romantic relationships is often overlooked or avoided when working with people who are on the road to recovery. Understanding that factors such as hope, connection and social support significantly minimize isolation and prevent relapse, the Institute for Community Living (ICL)...

Risk Assessment and Its Importance for Children and Adolescents

More than four years ago, the Institute for Community Living (ICL) extended its focus on risk assessment and intervention to provide staff with additional tools and strategies to support integrated and coordinated assessment and intervention of and for clinical risk. The purpose of the model is to...

A Clinic’s Initial Experiences Conducting Multiple Family Groups

Jose is an 11-year-old boy who has, for years, been threatening his family to run away and never return when he is upset with them. His family has tried to cope with these behaviors the best they could, but things reached the point that they felt they needed further assistance. His grandmother made...

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...