Critical Issues in the JCAH Accreditation Program for Community Mental Health Services

Since its introduction in 1976, the accreditation program for community mental health centers and services has been the focus of considerable comment, both positive and negative. Much of the criticism of the program derives from its theoretical framework, the Balanced Service System, with its unfamiliar service structure and terminology. The author, who played a leading role in developing the accreditation program, discusses the major concerns of the critics and the program revisions that have been made to deal with them while retaining the benefits of the BSS model. He emphasizes the importance of the model in providing a way to uniformly review the widely varying program and administrative configurations that operate as community mental health service programs.