Mental Health Self-Directed Care Financing: Efficacy in Improving Outcomes and Controlling Costs for Adults With Serious Mental Illness.

Objective: Self-directed care allows individuals with disabilities and elderly persons to control public funds to purchase goods and services that help them remain outside institutional settings. This study examined effects on outcomes, service costs, and user satisfaction among adults with serious mental illness.

Methods: Public mental health system clients were randomly assigned to self-directed care (N=114) versus services as usual (N=102) and assessed at baseline and 12 and 24 months.

Participatory action research to establish self-directed care for mental health recovery in Texas.

Objective: This article describes a public-academic collaboration between a university research center and the Texas state mental health authority to design and evaluate a unique "money follows the person" model called self-directed care (SDC). SDC programs give participants control over public funds to purchase services and supports for their own recovery.

Methods: Through a participatory action research process, the project combined use of evidence-based practice and community consensus as a tool for system change.

Combining evidence-based practice with stakeholder consensus to enhance psychosocial rehabilitation services in the Texas benefit design initiative.

This article describes the use of evidence-based practice along with a multi-stakeholder consensus process to design the psychosocial rehabilitation components in a benefit package of publicly funded mental health services in Texas. The Texas Benefit Design initiative demonstrates how the combination of science and consensus can be used as a powerful tool for change. It applies the findings of rigorous research regarding psychosocial rehabilitation service delivery approaches that achieve positive outcomes in real world, community settings.