Community mental health in the nineties: Public sector managed care

1994 ◽  
Vol 30 (4) ◽  
pp. 317-321 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kenneth Minkoff
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Public Sector ◽  
Managed Care ◽  
Community Mental Health

Work challenges negatively affecting the job satisfaction of early career community mental health professionals working in rural Australia: findings from a qualitative study

2018 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 173-186 ◽  
Author(s):  
Catherine Cosgrave ◽  
Myfanwy Maple ◽  
Rafat Hussain
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Job Satisfaction ◽  
Public Sector ◽  
Community Mental Health ◽  
Mental Health Professionals ◽  
Health Professionals ◽  
Physical Geography ◽  
Early Career ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Time Critical

Purpose Some of Australia’s most severe and protracted workforce shortages are in public sector community mental health (CMH) services. Research identifying the factors affecting staff turnover of this workforce has been limited. The purpose of this paper is to identify work factors negatively affecting the job satisfaction of early career health professionals working in rural Australia’s public sector CMH services. Design/methodology/approach In total, 25 health professionals working in rural and remote CMH services in New South Wales (NSW), Australia, for NSW Health participated in in-depth, semi-structured interviews. Findings The study identified five work-related challenges negatively affecting job satisfaction: developing a profession-specific identity; providing quality multidisciplinary care; working in a resource-constrained service environment; working with a demanding client group; and managing personal and professional boundaries. Practical implications These findings highlight the need to provide time-critical supports to address the challenges facing rural-based CMH professionals in their early career years in order to maximise job satisfaction and reduce avoidable turnover. Originality/value Overall, the study found that the factors negatively affecting the job satisfaction of early career rural-based CMH professionals affects all professionals working in rural CMH, and these negative effects increase with service remoteness. For those in early career, having to simultaneously deal with significant rural health and sector-specific constraints and professional challenges has a negative multiplier effect on their job satisfaction. It is this phenomenon that likely explains the high levels of job dissatisfaction and turnover found among Australia’s rural-based early career CMH professionals. By understanding these multiple and simultaneous pressures on rural-based early career CMH professionals, public health services and governments involved in addressing rural mental health workforce issues will be better able to identify and implement time-critical supports for this cohort of workers. These findings and proposed strategies potentially have relevance beyond Australia’s rural CMH workforce to Australia’s broader early career nursing and allied health rural workforce as well as internationally for other countries that have a similar physical geography and health system.

Youth psychotherapy change trajectories and outcomes in usual care: Community mental health versus managed care settings.

2010 ◽  
Vol 78 (2) ◽  
pp. 144-155 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jared S. Warren ◽  
Philip L. Nelson ◽  
Sasha A. Mondragon ◽  
Scott A. Baldwin ◽  
Gary M. Burlingame
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Managed Care ◽  
Community Mental Health ◽  
Usual Care ◽  
Change Trajectories ◽  
Care Community ◽  
Youth Psychotherapy

Community Mental Health Centers under Managed Care

1999 ◽  
Vol 59 (4) ◽  
pp. 367
Author(s):  
Keon S. Chi ◽  
Pamela Diamond ◽  
David Warner ◽  
Patrick Wong
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Managed Care ◽  
Community Mental Health ◽  
Health Centers ◽  
Community Mental Health Centers ◽  
Mental Health Centers

Social work approaches to mental health work: international trends

2012 ◽  
pp. 1408-1413
Author(s):  
Shulamit Ramon
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
United States ◽  
Social Work ◽  
Public Sector ◽  
Managed Care ◽  
Social Workers ◽  
The United States ◽  
Professional Status ◽  
For Profit ◽  
The One

Mental health social work is a broad, rather than a rigorous, church. Since the 1980s social workers have gained in professional status by the introduction of the roles of the approved social worker (or licensed to carry out civil commitment in the American context), care co-ordinators, managers of managed care facilities, or psychotherapists. These gains have come at a price outlined in the text above. Often the cost of closer collaboration within the multi-disciplinary framework has led to the risk of giving up the attempt to hold on to, and further develop, an alternative and complimentary perspective from that of psychiatrists, nurses, or psychologists, as well as raising doubts as to the uniqueness of MHSW. The increased narrowness of the role is not simply the byproduct of the legal framework. It is also due to increased specialization within mental health on the one hand, and the effects of neo- liberal policies globally on public sector funding on the other hand. The move to privately contracted work, either in managed care or in psychotherapy so apparent in the United States, is yet another outcome of neo-liberal policies which fragments MHSW. As a trend we are likely to see growing beyond the United States, the increased concentration of mental health social workers within the private sector does not bode well for a profession whose value base focuses on the need to protect the more vulnerable and stigmatized populations, and to provide the dual perspectives of psychosocial input. Mainly due to governmental pressure related to fear of risk and its potential political fallout, the focus on working exclusively with people experiencing long-term severe mental illness has contributed to the increasing narrowness of the role of social workers in most First World countries. The paralleled withdrawal of social work involvement with people who have milder forms of mental distress within public sector and not-for-profit services, and its increased availability only to those who can afford it, is a reflection of this situation. The core qualities of belief, optimism, and caring of MHSWs identified in a cross-national research coupled with the ability of MHSW to innovate as highlighted in this chapter, illustrate the optimistic scenario for positive change within this branch of social work. However, unless theory building and research aspects are given the importance they deserve within MHSW globally, including an inevitable critical dimension of the existing system, mental health social work is likely to be no more than a reflection of the developments in other professions. This will not only mean curtailing its autonomous potential, but also the impoverishment of the multi-disciplinary framework as a whole of a crucial dimension necessary for its comprehensive work, as exemplified in some recent work on the social aspects of MHSW. In addition, mental health social work will have to develop a much stronger policy making function, if it is to provide a more responsive, effective, and comprehensive service to users, relatives, and the communities in which these people live.

Community mental health and managed care

1993 ◽  
Vol 1993 (59) ◽  
pp. 89-98
Author(s):  
Charles Ray ◽  
Monica Oss
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Managed Care ◽  
Community Mental Health
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