Crisis response is an important part of a comprehensive mental health system. Crisis services for people with mental health problems and mental illness, however, have traditionally been provided in a hospital emergency room. This can be a chaotic place for people in crisis. Services that are based in the community, on the other hand, can reduce hospital use, involuntary treatment, and criminalization.
Researchers in Kingston, Ontario recently evaluated a community-based crisis service that used extra funding to increase service capacity, access to mobile crisis response, and the appropriateness of services delivered. This new model also included the addition of a transitional case management service. What the researchers found can be used to support the need for funding and policies that are flexible and sensitive enough to address issues as they emerge in the field. And the service model they looked at may be relevant and applicable to other communities.
EENet has developed a Research Snapshot of the article, “An Evaluation of a Community-Based, Integrated Crisis-Case Management Service,” by Terry Krupa and others. It appeared in the Canadian Journal of Community Mental Health, vol 29, no. 5 (2010): 125-37.
The Snapshot is available at www.ehealthontario.ca.
Research Snapshots are brief, clear language summaries of research articles, presented in a user-friendly format. To read EENet’s clear language summary of this article and others, visit the EENet website at www.ehealthontario.ca.