Person-Centered Care Planning and Service Engagement

This proposed study addresses the problem of service disengagement within the mental health system. No matter how effective mental health practices are now or become in the future, they are of little value should persons with mental illnesses continue to choose not to receive them. Consumers have attributed their disengagement from care to having poor alliances with care providers, including experiences of not being listened to and not being offered the opportunity to make decisions and collaborate in their own treatment. Person-centered care planning is a field-tested intervention designed to maximize consumer choice and ownership of the treatment process. Providers collaborate with consumers to develop customized plans that identify life goals and potential barriers to achieving them. The proposed study tests the effectiveness of Person-Centered Care Planning (PCCP) designed to target barriers and efficiently implement PCCP throughout an agency. By conducting a randomized controlled trial with 14 community mental health clinics from two states, the study will assess whether PCCP improves service engagement and consumer outcomes. The study will also utilize qualitative methods to understand how care planning impacts service engagement and how implementation processes influence organizational and provider level behavior. Designed to bridge the science to services gap, this study focuses on two priorities identified by the NIMH Diversion of Services and Intervention Research: developing models and methods to implement effective mental health services in the community and the study of personalized mental health care.