Current Projects
Current KT Commitments.
Our current KT activities include:
- Development and testing of a work-based learning curriculum to improve practitioner skills in the delivery of community inclusion services and supports, to be undertaken at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, under the direction of Dr. Kenneth Gill. The project is scheduled to begin in October 2011, and will involve the design and evaluation of curricula to improve the skills of practitioners in promoting community inclusion in psychiatric rehabilitation settings.
- Dissemination of fact sheets to support staff in Centers for Independent Living (CILs) in the delivery of community inclusion services/supports to CIL consumers with mental illnesses, developed in collaboration with Liberty Resources (the CIL serving Philadelphia) and CIL leaders throughout the country: the Fact Sheets provide basic information and a series of linkages to web sites with more detailed information in response to each of a dozen questions.
- Training for consumer-operated programs to encourage the development of services/supports for consumers that promote increased community inclusion: in collaboration with The National Mental Health Consumer Self Help Clearinghouse, and based on a national survey of consumer-operated programs and a report of innovative COSP programs (available through this website's ‘resources’ section), the training offers consumer-operated service leaders a framework community inclusion.
- Sponsorship of the Second International Research Conference on Community Inclusion (September, 2011 in Philadelphia) to review current research and innovative programming; a Call for Papers can be found ‘here ’ – and the conference offers an opportunity for researchers, consumers, and practitioners from across the country to discuss recent findings, explore innovative programming models, and review emerging community inclusion evaluation and research measures.
- Technical assistance to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in the development of new state standards to promote the expansion of supported employment services: Temple University Collaborative staff worked with the state’s mental health authority and a state-wide committee of consumers, county officials, and providers to design the framework for an ‘annual employment plan’ supplement to the basic mental health planning process.
Responsiveness to the Field
The Temple University Collaborative also responds to the field through:
- Maintenance of this website, quarterly publication of our newsletter, and online courses focusing on aspects of community inclusion. Our website (see above) provides access to a wide range of basic information on community inclusion principles and practices; our newsletter regularly updates readers on the progress and findings of current research in the field, and ongoing webinars offer participants distance learning opportunities to expand their skill base.
- Publications, papers, presentations, and print products on community inclusion. All materials are available through the ‘resources’ section of this website, where you will find publications from juried journals; papers developed specifically for the Temple University Collaborative, PowerPoint presentations from conferences and workshops in the field, and a variety of ‘toolkits,’ ‘guidebooks,’ and training manuals designed to assist staff in developing new skills for new goals.
- Technical assistance to the field to explore the costs and cost effectiveness of services and supports promoting community inclusion: in collaboration with the Human Services Research Institute, the Temple Collaborative is exploring the costs state mental health authorities can expect as they are developing best practice models of community inclusion for people with psychiatric disabilities, as well as the contingent costs of failing to do so.
- Systematic reviews of the literature to identify best practices in the development of community inclusion programming: in collaboration with the faculty of Temple University’s Department of Rehabilitation Sciences (our home), we are reviewing the literature on therapeutic recreation and its impact on the community inclusion of individuals with psychiatric disabilities, summarizing current research and identifying best practices for replication.
- Training and technical assistance programs, available upon request, in both short-term formats in onsite settings and longer-term consultations around program and policy development: the Temple University Collaborative offers one-day and two-day Institutes on Community Inclusion; training and technical assistance on various aspects of community inclusion (including evaluation outcomes research in the field), and ongoing consultation – contact Richard Baron (see ‘contact us’) for more information.