Reducing Uncertainty and Improving Recovery through the Provision of Flexible Services

For many individuals living with mental health and substance abuse problems, it is difficult to obtain the safety and security that are necessary components of recovery. This is because they do not have access to recourses such as food, housing, transportation, and employment that are needed to begin the process of stabilizing their lives.  When these resources are available, they are often are attached to a variety of caveats that make it difficult to exercise personal agency, another important component of recovery. Recognizing this, new approaches to mental and behavioral health care have begun to emphasize the importance of immediate access to resources through the provision of flexible services that give individuals the latitude to establish their own goals and plans for obtaining them. This presentation will focus on this emerging paradigm and the effect it is having within the mental and behavioral health fields. Housing First (HF) and Access to Recovery (ATR) are two services approaches that will be highlighted as examples. HF is an intervention developed in the United States—and spreading internationally—that provides immediate housing with low service demands to chronically homeless individuals with co-occurring mental health and substance use disorders. ATR is a program funded by the U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) that engages individuals with substance use disorders to develop their own recovery goals. ATR also provides individuals with stipends that can be used to access a number of services that are not provided by traditional programs. Discussion of both service approaches will emphasize findings from the author’s own research, which demonstrate how these models assist individuals in their recovery processes by reducing uncertainties related to the lack of resources and by increasing personal agency.