The New York State Legislature enacted a court ordered outpatient treatment statute in August 1999. It is targeted for treatment of high need individuals with severe mental illness that had previously been difficult to engage. Each NYS County was required to create a mechanism to identify, assess, and treat individuals meeting the AOT criteria. To assess the impact of AOT on recipients and on local mental health systems, NYSOMH developed a set of quantitative and qualitative evaluation strategies. Preliminary findings from the quantitative longitudinal study of AOT recipients include improvements on measures of service engagement, medication compliance, functioning, and high-risk behaviors. A qualitative study, in a sample of 10 NYS counties, focused on the perceptions of AOT from a large variety of different stakeholder groups, and focused on system level impacts. Findings include a variety of systemic structural changes in local mental health systems and agreement by all stakeholders groups that high need individuals do have improved access to mental health services. This presentation features a discussion of findings from these evaluation strategies and implications for mental health service delivery in New York State.
Learning Objectives: At the conclusion of this session the participant will be able to: 1. articulate approaches to delivering mental health services to a high need population 2. Describe a multi-method and multi-perspective approach to understanding program implementation.
Keywords: Mental Health Services, Mental Health System
Presenting author's disclosure statement:
Organization/institution whose products or services will be discussed: None
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.