Are Stigma And Civil Society Participation Affected By Program Model Type For People With Co-Occurring Histories Of Homelessness And Severe Mental Illness: A Feasibility Study Of Measures And Procedures

PI: James M. Mandiberg, MSW, Ph.D.
School of Social Work
Columbia University

ARE STIGMA AND CIVIL SOCIETY PARTICIPATION AFFECTED BY PROGRAM MODEL TYPE FOR PEOPLE WITH CO-OCCURRING HISTORIES OF HOMELESSNESS AND SEVERE MENTAL ILLNESS: A FEASIBILITY STUDY OF MEASURES AND PROCEDURES

The traditional objective for people with co-occurring homelessness and mental illness has been community integration. Intervention outcomes have focused upon clinical issues such as symptom reduction, upon habilitation issues such as skill building and upon tenure issues such as time in the community.  Inclusion has been replacing integration as a desired objective.  Far from a subtle shift in focus, the objective of inclusion implies a different relationship between the individual and the community and as such requires its own set of outcome categories and measures. Individual intervention models, such as ACT, and collective intervention models, such as clubhouse, have different approaches to inclusion, and may result in different inclusion-focused outcomes. This research explores two inclusion-related outcomes, stigma reduction and civil society participation, and ways to measure them with existing instruments. This first phase of the research gains experience with a wide variety of these instruments in an individual and a collective model program.