Assertive Community Treatment (ACT)

Assertive Community Treatment (ACT) 

 Assertive Community Treatment (ACT) is an evidenced-based recovery model designed to provide treatment, rehabilitation, and support services to individuals diagnosed with a serious and persistent mental illness whose needs have not been met by more traditional mental health services. Our ACT teams are interdisciplinary and include specialistsin the areas of psychiatry, mental health, drug and alcohol, vocational training, housing, and nursing. Services are designed to increase individual success and satisfaction with employment, education, and living environments. Services are provided 24/7, 365 days/year. The Agency of this ACT program is the Horizon House. Please see their website: https://www.hhinc.org/behavioral-health-services/community-based-treatment-services/ The Literature Review should include : (all resources NO OLDER THAN 5 YEARS) (NOTE: you may use scholarlly articles, Journal articles or reports from national/state/local governmental agencies – National Institute of Mental Health, National Institutes of Health, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, PA state or Philadelphia government websites, etc. as it pertains to ACT: A. What is the background and significance of the problem your research is addressing? 1. In your specific target population, what is the scope of the problem? 2. What other personal and social challenges is your specific target population also facing besides the pressing problem in question? Address from an ecological standpoint – what hardships are they facing at an individual, family/peer level, organizational, community, and policy level. Generating a holistic picture of what they are facing will help readers to understand where your program and objectives/outcomes fit in. B. What has been done in the past to address the problem? What is known and not known? 1. Describe what services, programs, policies, or best practices in general have been used in the past to address the issue. a. You can describe programs/policies that are similar and dissimilar to your program. b. You can describe programs/policies that are on the level of individual (e.g., one-on-one counseling/casework), group (e.g., family therapy, support groups, group workshops), organizational (e.g., communications or procedures changes at an agency level), community (e.g., coalition formation to address the issue, social marketing efforts such as PSAs/billboards), and/or policy (e.g., lack of effective policy or poor enforcement of policy to address the issue at either an agency, local, state, or federal level). 2. Summarize in your own words the similarities and differences of what programs have been assessed in the literature to your program. Is your program or target group/setting the first of its kind? Is there a lot of evidence present for you to expect your program to be successful? Or very little? Make note of this. C. What are the theoretical or conceptual assumptions of program? Why do you think the program creator thought their intervention would be successful – base it off a theory! 1. What theory or model is the program based off of and describe? If it is unknown, review some theories, select one, and use the theory to explain why the program should expect to see positive change in clients/participants. 2. End this literature review section with a sentence or two stating something like this: “Overall, it is expected this program will see positive changes in outcomes X, Y, Z due to the theoretical framework and published program evaluations of similar programs showing success (as reported in citations).” This will provide a nice lead-in to the overall research questions.