Assertive Community Treatment (ACT) is a multidisciplinary, team-based model that provides intensive community-based and outreach-oriented services to people who experience the most severe and persistent mental illness. The vast majority also have a co-occurring substance use disorder and many experience comorbid medical illnesses as well as homelessness. This is a vulnerable population and their providers – ACT teams – are at elevated risk themselves during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Northwest MHTTC is partnering with the Institute for Best Practices at the University of North Carolina to host and facilitate regular meetings for ACT teams.
Goals of the meetings are to:
In addition to the meet-up, we have also created a Virtual Discussion Forum to help organize information, resources, and strategies used across teams. You can participate in the forum as a guest, or sign up as a member. Within the Discussion Forum are specific board topics:
Supporting Covid-19 Vaccine Uptake: An Opportunity for ACT Teams to Strengthen Their Ability to Integrate Physical and Behavioral Health Care with Austin Hall, MD, Clinical Associate Professor, Department of Psychiatry, University of North Carolina School of Medicine; Medical Director, UNC Center for Excellence in Community Mental Health; and Director, Clinical Informatics, UNC Department of Psychiatry.
Austin Hall, MD is Medical Director for the University of North Carolina’s Center for Excellence in Community Mental Health and Director of Clinical Informatics for UNC’s Department of Psychiatry. Prior to joining UNC in 2015, Dr. Hall worked in community mental health for 12 years at Easter Seals UCP of North Carolina, where he worked on Assertive Community Treatment teams in both urban and rural settings. While at Easter Seals UCP, he helped to create the first Assertive Community Treatment team in North Carolina that focused exclusively on individuals with co-occurring substance use and severe mental illness using Integrated Dual Diagnosis Treatment principles. His teaching responsibilities at UNC include resident and medical student education in the treatment of psychotic disorders. Areas of interest include use of information technology in behavioral health services, team-based care delivery, expansion of access to care, and integration of behavioral and physical health.
Maria Monroe-DeVita or Lorna Moser, PhD, Director of the UNC ACT Technical Assistance Center in the UNC Department of Psychiatry’s Center for Excellence in Community Mental Health; and Coordinator of the North Carolina ACT Coalition.