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PARTNERING FOR RECOVERY IN MENTAL HEALTH

 

A PRACTICAL GUIDE TO PERSON-CENTERED PLANNING

 

Janis Tondora, Psy.D.

Assistant Professor, Department of Psychiatry

Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, CT

 

Rebecca Miller, Ph.D.

Associate Research Scientist, Department of Psychiatry

Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, CT

 

Mike Slade Ph.D.

Professor of Health Services Research

Health Service and Population Research Department,

Institute of Psychiatry King's College London, London, UK

 

Larry Davidson, Ph.D.

Professor of Psychiatry, Department of Psychiatry

Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, CT

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wiley Logo

 

 

 

To our children,

Caleb and Rylee

Cecilia

Emily and Isabel

and

Abbey, Alana, and Lexi

in the hope that all mental health services will be encouraging, person-centered, and collaborative if and when they, or their children, decide to use them.

Acknowledgments

This book is the result of over a decade of on-the-ground development, implementation, and evaluation of a person-centered approach to recovery planning for adults with serious mental illnesses. Consequently, there are far too many individuals who have been instrumental in this process for us to acknowledge each and every one of the service users, clinical practitioners, peer staff, family members, administrators, system leaders, and advocates by name. Nonetheless, we thank you all for your invaluable contributions to this work. We think that you know who you are.

Without diminishing the importance of the collective wisdom of our various collaborators, we do want to single out a number of individuals and organizations that have either made this work possible or made it as effective as it is. The first stages of this work were supported by a grant from the US National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) to Davidson and a contract with the US Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) to Tondora to work with a talented group of people to develop an early version of a person-centered care manual. For their contributions to this work, we thank Diane Grieder, Steve Onken, Sade Ali, Neal Adams, Linda Rammler, and Rita Cronise. Diane and Neal are also to be thanked for their tireless efforts to promote dialog around person-centered planning internationally and for Diane, in particular, for her partnership and contributions to our many shared training and consultation efforts these past several years.

Subsequently, our evolving work benefitted from the steadfast interest and energetic support of two Commissioners of the State of Connecticut's Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services, Thomas Kirk, Jr., and Patricia Rehmer. With their financial and moral commitment to implementing person-centered care planning across the state system, we were able to secure additional funding from both SAMHSA and the US Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to further refine and evaluate this approach. Most recently, we received additional support from the NIMH to evaluate implementation in Delaware and Texas, and we extend our thanks to our colleagues in those states as well. Finally, sabbaticals for both Davidson and Slade from Yale and King's College, respectively, have provided the much needed reviewing and writing time to help bring this manual to completion.

In the following chapters, we make the point that it is not “person-centered” to insist that a person make his own decisions when his cultural and personal preference is for a more collective decision-making process involving family members, elders, or other respected parties. We also point out that it is not in keeping with the principles of “person first language” to insist that a person describe herself as a “woman with an addiction” when she prefers to use the term “addict” (even though that may be offensive to others). These are but two examples of the ways in which we have seen well-meaning practitioners turn person-centered principles on their head in the earnest attempt to be faithful to what they interpret person-centeredness to be. We offer this manual in the hope that readers will feel as free to “fiddle” with aspects of this approach as they may need to be faithful to it, and that above all, being person-centered means respecting the uniqueness and honoring the dignity of each individual you have the privilege to serve.

Janis Tondora, Psy.D.
Yale University School of Medicine

Rebecca Miller, Ph.D.
Yale University School of Medicine

Mike Slade Ph.D.
Institute of Psychiatry King's College London

Larry Davidson, Ph.D.
Yale University School of Medicine