System Impacts of Psychiatric Rehabilitation Training: Experiences in California and Israel

Transforming mental health agencies and systems takes coordinated effort by all stakeholders, including people in recovery, policy makers, staff, and community partners.  In this presentation, we will discuss the “3C’s” of transforming recovery-oriented systems: Culture; Commitment; and Capacity (Farkas, et al., 2008). The 3C’s are addressed through intensive psychiatric rehabilitation training to build workforce capacity, promoting leadership and stakeholder commitment, and introducing interventions aimed at changing agency culture. The experience of transforming programs/systems in Sonoma County, California and in Israel will be presented.  Opportunities for assessment of participants’ own needs for system or program transformation will be offered.