Community Resource Exploration for Behavioral Health Clinic and Family Support and Education Programs

This article explores the Behavioral Health Clinic and Family Support and Education programs in Maricopa County. It discusses the services provided by Desert Vista, including treatment, medication, and psychotherapy for mental illnesses. It also covers the education provided by MIHS, which aims to educate individuals and families about mental illnesses. The article highlights the positive outcomes of the programs, such as improved problem-solving skills and enhanced family relations, as well as the challenges facing program implementation, including the shortage of community resources and the high cost of outpatient services.

Running head: COMMUNITY RESOURCE EXPLORATION 1
Community Resource Exploration
Student’s Name
Institutional Affiliation
Community Resource Exploration

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Program: Behavioral Health Clinic
Website Link: http://mihs.org/behavioral-health/behavioral-health--outpatient
1. Services Provided by the Program
Desert Vista is a behavioral medical clinic that provides treatment to the mentally ill persons
experiencing emotional, psychological, psychiatric and behavioral difficulties. In relation to the
treatment, they offer full assessment, symptoms analysis, medication, management and
psychotherapy to the victims. Therapies include individual, group and family therapy. The
common symptoms experienced by such individuals include notable anxiety, hallucinations,
depression and lack of attention. The victims also face difficulties addressing their relationship
with peoples and in most cases portray grief. The dedicated team of doctors at Desert Vista
provide prescriptive medication aimed at addressing the needs of every patients. Most
importantly, their services are affordable and for convenience, client’s prescriptions can easily be
filled at any MIHS pharmacy or any other pharmacy of their choice (Geller 2000).
2. Target Population
Desert Vista offers behavioral health care to over 1,500 adolescents and adults in need of
comprehensive mental care at their outpatient clinic. They target individuals who seeks
medications following a court order where a judge orders a criminals suffering from severe
mental illness to seek a treatment plan with the aim of preventing dangerous deterioration. Such
deteriorations are not only very harmful to the individuals as well as their communities but can
result in the victims being detained in medical facilities. The behavioral health care offers
involuntary treatment to such individuals with fully assisted outpatient commitment (Bachrach,
2016).
3. Positive Outcomes of the Program

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The medical clinic has collaborated with other health care providers with the main aim being
provision of excellent services to the client’s. A good example here is the Maricopa Health Care
Systems where they demonstrate a safe, high quality and comprehensive outpatient services. In
additional to the client-centric setting in these clinics, they present an Assertive Community
Treatment Program to benefit the mentally ill persons. Treatment and medication in Desert Vista
is anchored on evidence based practice which is a new way of integrating nursing knowledge
with client’s experiences and preferences.
4. Challenges Facing Program Implementation
No single program not even the most successful has ever lacked its set of challenges. With
regard to Desert Vista, the main challenge is the shortage in community resources that could
otherwise be used in substance abuse-detox services. The health care unit handles thousands of
patients suffering from various substance related illnesses but it becomes difficult to serve
persons unwilling to accept their mental condition or who are abusing alcohol and drugs. Like
any other project, this program requires a lot of capital to implement. Outpatient services are
overly expensive and consumes a great deal of funds thereby limiting the capacity for service
delivery (Belluck, 2013).
Program: Family Support and Education
Website Link: http://mihs.org/behavioral-health/outpatient-services
1. Services Provided by the Program
The program known as Family Support and Education by MIHS aims at educating
individuals and families about mental illnesses. With this program, people are equipped with the
knowhow of the cause and effects of mental diseases and how to address their loved ones who
could be suffering from the same. Most important is the self-care and self-renewal that comes

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with the knowledge of mental diseases and its relationship with drugs and substance abuse. The
participants of this program benefit from improved problem solving skills, enhanced family
relations, self-worth and improved personal coping strategies. These virtues are acquired from
the alliance formed between the participants and the program staff whose aim is to restore hope
and alleviate depression amongst the victims.
2. Target Population
As a Health Care Centre, MIHS provides health services to citizens of Maricopa County.
From its records, MIHS has made over 20,000 impatient admissions and attended to
approximately 300,000 outpatient clients per year. As the numbers suggest, the health care unit
attends to people of all races, nationalities and cultural backgrounds. Also, the unit caters for
patients with all medical conditions ranging from light to complicated medical conditions.
Medics here are dedicated to providing culturally appropriate medical care to its patients
(Hopper et al., 2012).
3. Positive Outcomes of the Program
MIHS has joined hands with MMIC and through that collaboration, three programs have
emerged, with Family Support and Education, discussed above, being one of them. The other
two are Assertive Community Treatment (ACT) and Early Psychosis Intervention Program, a
program meant to clients and family members of MMIC. ACT aims at addressing the needs of a
100 individuals suffering from serious mental illnesses. Early Psychosis Intervention Program
treats young citizens diagnosed with psychotic disease.
4. Challenges Facing Program Implementation
While deinstitutionalization of persons with mental disorders has made remarkable progress,
a large number of the victims still face the challenge of substance abuse. While the various

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institutions have been successful in helping these victims, their programs are a catastrophe to a
majority of them. Challenges in deinstitutionalization can best be explained by the number of
suicide deaths, acts of violence and homelessness by the mentally ill. The numbers are alarming.
Further, despite the attempts to restore normalcy to the patients, several of them are frequently
re-admitted to the same hospitals while others are in jail. To sum it up, several challenges faces
these programs hindering their implementation (Flory and Friedrich 1999).

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References
Bachrach, L. L. (2016). Deinstitutionalization: What do the numbers mean?. Psychiatric
Services, 37(2), 118-121.
Belluck, P. (2013). Program compelling outpatient treatment for mental illness is working, study
says". The New York Times. Retrieved July 30, 2013 from
http://mihs.org/includes/templates/latest/interior.html
Flory, C., & Friedrich, R. (1999). Where did deinstitutionalized mental patients go? (Report).
Retrieved August 08, 2017, from
https://mentalillnesspolicy.org/imd/deinstitutionalizationflory.html
Geller, J. L. (2000). Excluding institutions for mental diseases from federal reimbursementfor
services: strategy or tragedy?. Psychiatric Services, 51(11), 1397-1403.
Hopper, K., Baxter, E., & Cox, S. (2012). Not making it crazy: the young homeless patients in
New York City. New Directions for Student Leadership, 2012(14), 33-42.
Lamb, H., Weinberger L. (2008). Persons with severe mental illness in jails and prisons: a
review. Psychiatric Services 49:483–492.