142nd APHA Annual Meeting and Exposition

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304148
Parachute NYC: An innovative approach to serving people with psychosis in New York City

142nd APHA Annual Meeting and Exposition (November 15 - November 19, 2014): http://www.apha.org/events-and-meetings/annual
Monday, November 17, 2014

David C. Lindy, MD , Community Mental Health Services, Visiting Nurse Service of New York, New York, NY
Pablo Sadler, MD , Bureau of Mental Health, New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, Long Island City, NY
Neil Pessin, PhD , Community Mental Health Services, Visiting Nurse Service of NY, New York, NY
Parachute NYC is an innovative program designed to provide a "soft landing" for people with psychosis between 16 and 65 in New York City. It is composed of three parts: 1) community-based respite beds operated in small, intimate facilities staffed by people with "lived experience" (peers), 2) a peer staffed warm-line available to anyone in distress, and 3) mobile teams providing home-based mental health treatment to people with psychosis for up to one year. Parachute NYC is funded by a three year, federal grant awarded to the NYC Department of Health & Mental Hygiene, and based on the Needs Adapted Treatment Model (NATM) which has been widely used in northern Europe for 40 years. The essence of NATM is the network meeting, a group composed of the client, the significant people in his/her life, and two staff members who regularly attend. Network meetings achieve stabilization through the creation of a psychodynamically-guided group process in which problems and solutions are allowed to organically emerge. Meetings occur as frequently as necessary, all decisions are shared and transparent, and antipsychotic medications are used as little as possible. The European experience shows that many first break patients stabilize with a maximum of 10 network meetings over the first year with minimal medication. Parachute NYC broadens NATM to include people with more chronic psychotic illnesses, the addition of peers on the mobile team, and support from the respite beds and warm line. We will provide a description of Parachute NYC, as well as preliminary data on its effects on ER and inpatient utilization.

Learning Areas:

Provision of health care to the public

Learning Objectives:
Differentiate the needs adapted treatment model for the treatment of people with psychosis from more standard models of care.

Keyword(s): Mental Health Treatment &Care

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: Parachute NYC is an innovative, psychodynamically-oriented model that provides treatment in the home to people with psychosis. I am Chief Psychiatrist of Community Mental Health Services of VNSNY, which provides home-based psychiatric care to 15,000 psychiatric patients/year, many with psychotic illnesses. I have developed many innovative community mental health programs with VNSNY. I am also on the faculty of Columbia University's Center for Psychoanalytic Treatment and Research and immersed in psychodynamic treatment and training.
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.