The Center for Practice Innovations: A Resource for the Behavioral Healthcare Workforce

The New York State Office of Mental Health (OMH) and the Department of Psychiatry, Columbia University, established the Center for Practice Innovations at Columbia Psychiatry and New York State Psychiatric Institute (CPI) in 2007 to promote the widespread use of evidence-based practices developed...

The Integrated Mental Health and Addictions Treatment Training Certificate (IMHATT)

The New York State Office of Mental Health (OMH) and the Department of Psychiatry, Columbia University, established the Center for Practice Innovations at Columbia Psychiatry and New York State Psychiatric Institute (CPI) in November 2007, to promote the widespread use of evidence-based practices...

Focus on Integrated Treatment (FIT)

Person-centered recovery and treatment includes understanding a person’s individual strengths and challenges. For many, the path to recovery includes addressing both mental health and substance use disorders; however, historically, treatment settings offering help with both have been difficult to...

Our Patients Are Mothers Too

The impact of serious mental illness on mothers has received little attention when compared to the study of outcomes for children of parents with mental illness. Mental health providers may not routinely inquire about the parenting status of seriously mentally ill women, or consider whether they...

Preventing Depression in Teenagers

In this article, we summarize research indicating that women experience depression more frequently than men, and that this difference emerges during the adolescent years. There are several reasons girls may be at higher risk for depression than boys, but researchers still do not fully understand...

Internet Distance Learning Initiative Focuses on How to Treat Co-Occurring Mental Health and Substance Use Disorders

The New York State Office of Mental Health (OMH) funded Evidence-Based Practices Technical Assistance Center (EBP-TAC) at New York State Psychiatric Institute (www.nyspi.org/ebptac) is introducing a distance learning initiative that focuses on evidence-based integrated treatment for co-occurring...

The Future of Mental Health Care: Better Services and More Research

For someone who suffers from a mental illness, the chances for receiving effective treatment and recovering are better now than ever in human history. Incredible as this may sound, it is true. We currently can do more for patients with serious mental illnesses like schizophrenia, schizoaffective...

Columbia Trauma and PTSD Program: Vital Research and Treatment for Veterans

Those of us who have not had the misfortune of enduring war find it difficult to understand. Popular culture is rife with images of warfare, but nothing in civilian life actually compares to the experiences of combat. Combat stress includes not only the constant threat of injury and death, the...

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...