Opening Doors to Recovery in Southeast Georgia: An innovative service for individuals with serious mental illnesses using Community Navigation Specialists

Psychosocial disability and functional impairments frequently accumulate throughout the course of persistent serious mental illnesses, all too often culminating in homelessness, incarceration, and repeated hospitalization. Yet, in many healthcare settings—including the southeast region of Georgia—limited or no recovery-oriented case management services are currently available. Developed in recognition of this need, “Opening Doors to Recovery in Southeast Georgia” is an innovative project surrounding the delivery of tailored, recovery-oriented case management services to people with persistent serious mental illnesses who have an established history of recurrent homelessness, incarcerations, and/or hospitalizations. The initial project, with 100 participants, involves an innovative form of health workers that expand the scope of work of traditional case managers called, “Community Navigation Specialists” (or CNSs). The CNS team consists of a licensed mental health professional, a family member of someone with a serious mental illness, and a person with lived experience (a certified Peer Specialist). Working together, the CNS team provides services beyond that of traditional case management. This presentation will provide an overview of the development, training, and implementation of the CNSs, and preliminary results related to training and implementation. It will also highlight the observable and important differences between a CNS and a traditional mental health professional. In addition, the presentation will focus on the partnerships formed between the CNS team and multiple agencies in the community (parks and recreation, law enforcement, banks, transportation, and institutions of higher education) and their importance in aiding patients in their “navigation” of their own unique recovery process.