Main description:

This book is a primer on Stepped Care 2.0. It is the first book in a series of three. This primer addresses the increased demand for mental health care by supporting stakeholders (help-seekers, providers, and policy-makers) to collaborate in enhancing care outcomes through work that is both more meaningful and sustainable.

Our current mental health system is organized to offer highly intensive psychiatric and psychological care. While undoubtedly effective, demand far exceeds the supply for such specialized programming. Many people seeking to improve their mental health do not need psychiatric medication or sophisticated psychotherapy. A typical help seeker needs basic support. For knee pain, a nurse or physician might first recommend icing and resting the knee, working to achieve a healthy weight, and introducing low impact exercise before considering specialist care. Unfortunately, there is no parallel continuum of care for mental health and wellness. As a result, a person seeking the most basic support must line up and wait for the specialist along with those who may have very severe and/or complex needs. Why are there no lower intensity options? One reason is fear and stigma. A thorough assessment by a specialist is considered best practice. After all, what if we miss signs of suicide or potential harm to others? A reasonable question on the surface; however, the premise is flawed. First, the risk of suicide, or threat to others, for those already seeking care, is low. Second, our technical capacity to predict on these threats is virtually nil. Finally, assessment in our current culture of fear tends to focus more on the identification of deficits (as opposed to functional capacities), leading to over-prescription of expensive remedies and lost opportunities for autonomy and self-management. Despite little evidence linking assessment to treatment outcomes, and no evidence supporting our capacity to detect risk for harm, we persist with lengthy intake assessments and automatic specialist referrals that delay care. Before providers and policy makers can feel comfortable letting go of risk assessment, however, they need to understand the forces underlying the risk paradigm that dominates our society and restricts creative solutions for supporting those in need.

Contents:

1. Introduction: We Need a Better System (Identifies the problem: the risk paradigm; and outlines the solution: SC2.0)

2. Wellness Now (Strategies for developing walk-in consults for all, regardless of level of distress)

3. Values and Principles of a Vibrant Wellness System (i.e., ethics and recovery principles needed to make care more client centric and sustainable)

4. Expanding the Options (description of the 9-steps)

5. Co-Design and Continuous Quality Improvement (client and provider-facing tracking of outcomes including functioning, growth, symptoms, engagement, readiness)

6. Navigating the System (principle of failing forward through trial and error approaches and continuous wellness monitoring)

7. Developing Partnerships (collaboration - three levels: i) with clients; ii) other wellness providers; iii) inter-cultural)

8. Adapting for Unique Settings (introduction to variations on the model from and for different contexts)

9. Conclusion: Towards a Paradigm Shift (sets the stage for the two more comprehensive edited volumes which illustrate through multiple perspectives how the model is being, conceptualized, applied and implemented).