
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Mander, Anthony 
A1  - Gomes, Allen 
A1  - Castle, David 
T1  - The management of change in aCommunity Mental Health Team
JF  - Australian Health Review
JO  - Aust. Health Review
Y1  - 2002
VL  - 25
IS  - 2
SP  - 115
EP  - 121
KW  - 
UR  - https://doi.org/10.1071/AH020115 
N2  - Assertive Community Treatment (ACT) is the most widely studied and well supported evidence based communitymanagement model for persons with severe mental illness (SMI) in the mental health literature. This report details the replacement of an unevaluated generic model of case management with ACT in a metropolitan inner city area.This is work in progress and detailed patient outcomes are not yet available. The steps taken and the problemsencountered in changing clinical practice are important over and above the intervention itself and are discussed. The main difficulty that we encountered was moving staff from focusing on and becoming demoralised by potentialproblems and obstacles to problem solving and implementation of the best available solution. Staff were consulted at all stages of the project. The use of an 'action research' strategy maximised their sense of ownership and ultimatelyenabled the project to be implemented although in a revised format to that originally envisaged. Flexibility in this regard was crucial since the budget granted was only 40% of that requested. The original aim of having all 3 sector teams of the Inner City Mental Health Service (ICMHS) involved did not eventuate due to internal organisational issues and only one team undertook to implement the ACT approach. 
ER  -

