Measuring Mental Health Recovery

Greetings again. In my earlier two posts I made frequent reference to mental health recovery and the meaning of recovery therein. Through my work experience as an Evaluation's and Information Systems Specialist, I have come to learn that one of the leading research facilities in the field, the Mental Health Center of Denver, has developed instruments to quantifiably track psychological recovery.

Such instruments, in a project they are calling the Reaching Recovery Initiative, are designed to quantitatively track and measure a mental health consumer's progress and condition throughout their clinical treatment. The instruments were developed and tested by MHCD’s Research and Evaluation’s Department, which is comprised of a multi-disciplinary team of biostatisticians, Ph.D.’s in experimental psychology, computer programmers, data specialists, clinical case managers, and other clinicians.

The data to create said recovery instruments was initially gathered from, and is currently supported and utilized by, their out-patient treatment facilities throughout the Denver-metro area, wherein the organization, staffed with some 500 employees, treated over 11,000 consumers in the last year.

For professionals, check out their recent research and publications by following this link, or access the Research and Evaluation’s home page here, and let us know what you think about the recovery research, research on child resiliency, adult recovery, etc.

For mental health care consumers, if you are interested in a recovery-based treatment plan, or just in finding out what one is like, check out the MHCD Homepage. If you have actually been a consumer whose case manager utilizes the recovery instruments, we’d love to hear more on your experience with them.

Keep posting my friends! We are trying to create a platform for meaningful communications; and by that I mean communication between professionals, between mental healthcare consumers, and a dialogue of consumers and professionals communicating with one another. None of that would be possible without your help and your comments!

Until next time, stay healthy, stay happy.