Programs With Family Focus Win APA Gold Awards

Two programs that support parents with mental illness and benefit seriously mentally ill children and adolescents on an inpatient unit were awarded APA’s 2003 Psychiatric Services Gold Awards at last month’s Institute on Psychiatric Services. The winners were selected from two categories: smaller, community-based programs and large academically or institutionally based programs. In addition to a plaque, each program was presented a check in the amount of $10,000 as an unrestricted cash grant from Pfizer Inc.

The smaller, community-based program Gold Award was presented to the Family Support Services/PACE (FSS/PACE) program of the Community Mental Health Center for Mid-Eastern Iowa. The program helps parents with mental illness by building a bridge between mental health services and other service delivery systems. FSS/PACE was created in response to recognition among staff of the Johnson County Department of Human Services that traditional child welfare services were minimally effective when parental mental health issues were a factor in the family’s involvement in the child welfare system.

FSS/PACE staff establish supportive, unconditional, and therapeutic relationships with families. Services are provided for as long as the family needs them. Both staff members and families report that the strong relationships formed are more like those between family members than those between patient and therapist. Services include case management, individual therapy for both adults and children, medication and illness management, parenting-skills training and child development education, problem-solving skills training, strength identification for the entire family, and advocacy.

The large academic or institutional Gold Award was presented to the Open Arms Program of the Cambridge Health Alliance Child Assessment Unit (CAU) in Cambridge, Mass., for its implementation of a dramatic culture change on an inpatient unit for children and adolescents with serious psychiatric problems.

The CAU’s medical director, Bruce Hassuk, M.D., and nurse manager, Kathleen Regan, R.N., developed a set of core values for the way children would be treated on the CAU by implementing the Open Arms Program, representing a new culture and a total restructuring of inpatient psychiatric care for children. Their goal was to provide more humane psychiatric care to children by balancing the dangers associated with aggressive behavior with a desire to manage such behavior with less-restrictive interventions. They wanted to move away from a limit-setting, consequence-based culture of “teaching life lessons” to children by punishing them for their behaviors.

In lieu of the certificates of significant achievement presented in past years, APA also presented Silver and Bronze Awards. Silver Awards were presented to Innovations and the Neurobehavioral Center—two programs of the CARITAS Peace Center in Louisville, Ky.—and to Southeast Mental Health Services in La Junta, Colo. Bronze Awards were presented to the Sinnissippi Mental Illness and Substance Abuse Service Enhancement program in rural northwestern Illinois and to the Summit County (Ohio) Alcohol, Drug Addiction, and Mental Health Services Board. All Silver and Bronze Award winners were presented with plaques during the awards ceremony. ▪