Senior Outreach Services: A Treatment-Oriented Outreach Team in Community Mental Health

MODELS OF GERIATRICS PRACTICE: A Community Development and Outreach Program in Geriatric Mental Health: Four Years' Experience

“…Geriatric psychiatry outreach and consultation services have been proposed as a public policy response to the challenge of serving the mental health needs of an aging population in the context of scarce specialized resources and expertise 1–3 . Although the number of such programs has been growing, 4–9 there is little agreement about the form these services should take, how they should be implemented, or their objectives 10 . We have argued that future development of such programs should place emphasis on the development of local resources and on responsiveness to the needs and circumstances of the area in which the consultation service is located 10 .…”

Ohio Community Mental Health Center Directors' Perceptions of Programming for Older Adults: An Exploratory Study

“…Suggested modifications to traditional service provision -targeted programming, service decentralization and provision at sites where elders live and/or congregate (Cohen, 1976;Hagebak & Hagebak, 1980;Kahn, 1981;Knight, 1983;Reifler & Hansen, 1986;Romaniuk, 1982;Santos, Hubbard, McIntosh, & Eisner, 1984; Thompson, 1978;U.S. GAO, 1982), use of staff specifically designated to work with elders (Knight, 1986;Patterson, 1976; Thompson, 1978), mobilization of nontraditional referral sources , use of active outreach, and increased networking efforts with other community agencies to coordinate care (Knight, Reinhart, & Field, 1982; U.S. GAO, 1982) -appear promising for overcoming utilization/delivery barriers, for increasing service accessibility and acceptability, and for serving elders more successfully. However, it has not been empirically determined to what extent CMHCs, particularly those with specialized geriatric components, have integrated modifications into their service delivery systems.…”

Community-based services for older adults: A role for psychologists?

“…After achieving success in increasing the numbers of older adults in outpatient services and decreasing admissions to the state hospital serving the area (Knight et al, 1982;Knight, 1989), the participants in the program developed an intensive case-management component that was successful in reducing the number of days that older psychiatric inpatients spent in the county psychiatric facility and in reducing discharges from that unit to the state hospital (Knight & Carter, 1990).…”