Maria Monroe-DeVita, PhD, presented in-person on August 2, 2023 in Boise, Idaho for the first annual Idaho Division of Behavioral Health Center of Excellence Conference on Assertive Community Treatment (ACT) and Early Serious Mental Illness (ESMI).
This presentation will focus on challenges and opportunities related to addressing service needs for people with SMI and ESMI in rural communities, particularly ways in which ACT and Coordinated Specialty Care (CSC) programs can be adapted and collaboratively created to meet the unique sociocultural and psychosocial needs within their communities.
Dr. Monroe-DeVita’s expertise is in implementation and services research related to evidence-based practices for adults with serious mental illness, particularly the Assertive Community Treatment (ACT) model. She has served as the Principal Investigator on several projects with the Washington State Division of Behavioral Health and Recovery, including the development, implementation, and fidelity assessment of 10 new ACT teams, and several Illness Management and Recovery (IMR) and Integrated Dual Disorder Treatment (IDDT) pilots across the state. She is also in the process of developing and testing novel approaches to better serving people with serious mental illness. She received a collaborative R34 grant from the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) to develop and pilot-test the integration of IMR within ACT teams and is working to better define and implement integrated primary care services within ACT. She is also the lead author of the new ACT fidelity tool – the Tool for Measurement of Assertive Community Treatment (TMACT) – which has been disseminated and pilot-tested in several U.S. states and countries. Dr. Monroe-DeVita is a core faculty member of the Northwest MHTTC and SPIRIT Lab at the University of Washington, which provides training, consultation, technical assistance, and fidelity assessment to agencies across the state to support sustainable implementation of EBPs that can substantially enhance the functional recovery of individuals living with serious mental illness.
