Growing with people with a psychiatric disability in a psychosocial rehabilitation program

The service needs of people with schizophrenia change during the process of recovery, and rehabilitation programs should be prepared to address these changing needs. A community-based psychosocial rehabilitation and treatment program is described, which offers long-term case management services to a dults with schizophrenia. Since its inception in 1977, this program has evo lved from providing intensive case management to providing a continum of se rvices to meet the changing needs of all people with a psychiatric disabili ty. Psychiatric rehabilitation technology is used to set rehabilitation goa ls successfully for interested individuals. When service utilization was me asured prospectively for a three-year period, a reduction is general case m anagement time was seen, with a concomitant increase in psychiatric rehabil itation time. Quality of life and symptom measures improved over the same t ime period. When programs evolve to meet the changing service needs of peop le with a psychiatric disability, continued improvement in outcome measures can be seen.