MH/DD/SAS Division hosts 1st N.C. Practice Improvement Congress

In May, the Division of Mental Health, Developmental Disabilities and Substance Abuse Services hosted what it hopes will be an annual event, the N.C. Practice Improvement Collaborative (NC PIC) Congress. The collaborative is a key advisory group tasked with making recommendations to division leadership on support services that will lead to improvements in consumers’ lives.

The division’s chief of community policy, Flo Stein, spearheaded the effort to create NC PIC. She called the group “…a key element in the statewide transformation of the MH/D/SAS system, namely what services should be available for consumers from our system.”

Robert Gettings, executive director of the National Association of State Directors of Developmental Disabilities Services, provided a keynote address. Gettings described several key issues for improving the quality of services. He discussed the need for reducing reliance on state institutions, improving case management performance, having better capacity for intervening in a crisis, promoting grassroots acceptance of people with disabilities, improving strategies for serving individuals with co-occurring disabilities, and building stronger community support agencies.

Another speaker, Dr. H. Westley Clark, director of the Center for Substance Abuse Treatment under the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, noted that “selecting evidence-based practices is one stage, but actually implementing an evidence-based practice is a very different thing.” He described several initiatives sponsored by SAMHSA to assist states and local consumers and providers in improving services.

Both presentations are available on the web at www.ncpic.net.

The NC PIC meets quarterly to review and discuss relevant programs. Annually, the group will present a report of prioritized program recommendations to the MH/DD/SAS Division director at the North Carolina Practice Improvement Congress. The division will then evaluate the programs highlighted in the report for feasibility and cost effectiveness and determine a timetable for endorsement and adoption into the public system.

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Last Modified: July 28, 2006