Mental Health: Systems Transformation

MAINE

Grant Information

Name of Grantee

Maine Department of Health and Human Services, Adult Mental Health Services

Title of Grant

Maine Recovery Specialist Program for Consumer-Driven Mental Health Systems Change

Type of Grant

Mental Health: Systems Transformation

Amount of Grant

$262,318

Year Original Funding Received

2004

Contact Information

Ms. Leticia Huttman, Project Officer
Department of Health and Human Services
#11 State House Station
Marquadt Building, 2nd Floor
Augusta, ME 04333
207-287-4253
leticia.huttman@maine.gov

Subcontractor(s)

Nadine Edris
Center for Learning
Edmund Muskie School of Public Service
University of Southern Maine
207-626-5220
nadine.edris@maine.gov

Shery Mead
302 Bean Road
Plainfield, NH 03781
603-469-3577
shery466@adelphia.net

Target Population(s)

Adults with mental illness who are Medicaid eligible.

Goals

  • Build capacity for quality peer supports, self-directed services, and other consumer-driven services and natural supports by developing a peer support Recovery Specialist certification program.
  • Strengthen the consumer role in system and community agency governance, decision making, planning, and service delivery.

Activities

  • Develop a state peer support Recovery Specialist training and certification program and conduct annual training to produce 60 Recovery Specialists.
  • Align the community support section of the Medicaid State Plan with the new Recovery Specialist Program.
  • Develop improved consumer-provider-Medicaid relations and increase consumers' community inclusion through education and marketing strategies.
  • Substantially increase numbers of Wellness Recovery Action Planning (WRAP) facilitator trainers and facilitators and Recovery Workbook Groups (RWGs) facilitators.
  • Research the evidence base for, and evaluate the delivery of, consumer-directed recovery-oriented services, with focus on Assertive Community Treatment (ACT) teams, WRAP, and RWGs through better tracking of Medicaid claims data for reimbursed services.
  • Develop and adopt a list of core values to guide statewide development of a consumer-directed recovery-oriented service system.
  • Identify consumer-directed recovery-oriented services and supports with the strongest evidence base and promise. Identify which should be reimbursable. Identify barriers to delivery and recommendations to overcome those barriers.
  • Recommend revisions in licensing regulations to specify consumer percentages on governing boards of provider agencies.

Abstract

The Maine Recovery Specialist Program for Consumer-Driven Mental Health Systems Change project is guided by the view that effective implementation of recovery-oriented principles in a state mental health system requires a strategic catalyst, a top-down and bottom-up approach, and a collaborative approach with strategic partners. Maine Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), Adult Mental Health Services, in cooperation with DHHS Bureau of Medical Services, will collaborate with the Maine Peer Support Workgroup and the Center for Learning, Institute for Public Sector Innovation of the Edmund S. Muskie School of Public Service, University of Southern Maine, to implement this grant project.

A Consumer Project Advisory Committee representing consumers, survivors, and former patients from across the State will advise the project and provide a communications link to consumer organizations statewide. This Advisory Committee will be an expanded form of the Peer Support Workgroup, which designed the premise for this project with the Office of Consumer Affairs to further mobilize consumers and families to move a recovery-based agenda forward.

The project focus on training consumers as Recovery Specialists will serve as a catalyst for promoting a recovery-based approach for increasing community integration and inclusion of consumers and transforming the overall level of recovery-orientation of Maine's mental health system. Adult Mental Health Services will strengthen its strategic alliance with MaineCare, the State Medicaid program, collaborating to assure utilization of newly trained and certified peer support Recovery Specialists and WRAP and RWG facilitators and thereby enhance the recovery-orientation of Maine's mental health system. Concurrently, the Deputy Commissioner, Programs, Director of Adult Mental Health Services, and grant project staff in the Office of Consumer Affairs will work to permeate a recovery-oriented philosophy in policy and decision making and planning and evaluation processes of the state mental health agency.