People with serious mental illness get sick and die 10–20 years earlier than their same age cohort. The social determinants are many: stigma associated with mental illness, poverty, ethnicity-based discrimination, higher rates of smoking and alcohol and drug use, and poor diet and exercise patterns, to name a few. Although multiple interventions have emerged as ways to combat these health challenges, additional research is necessary for the continued development and evaluation of strategies. This context serves as the springboard for Health and Wellness in People Living With Serious Mental Illness. Through multiple case vignettes, the book delves into the challenges of health and wellness for people with mental illness—including those listed above—summarizing the research on mortality and morbidity in this group as well as information about the status quo on wellness. It also provides a thorough description of community-based participatory research (CBPR), an approach that includes people in a community as partners in all facets of research, rather than just the subjects of that research. CBPR acts as the lens through which this guide considers solutions to these health problems, including integrated services and patient-centered medical homes; medical practices that diminish the iatrogenic effects of psychiatry; psychoeducation; interpersonal supports; and shared decision-making. Co-edited by Patrick Corrigan, with a 30-year history in services research, and Sonya Ballentine, a community-based member of a CBPR team, this volume offers a grounded, real-world illustration of CBPR in practice. Students of psychiatry, practicing clinicians, primary care providers, allied health professionals, policy makers—all will find, in the pages of this book, a nuanced portrait of the health challenges patients with mental illness face, possible treatment options, and future directions for the field.

Health workers who provide services to persons with severe mental illness are frequently under enormous stress; burnout is common. Alleviating such stress is the objective of Interactive Staff Training. The book provides rehabilitation and mental health professionals with a strategy to help them and their colleagues work as a well-integrated team. This strategy has been implemented in teams serving more than 10,000 persons with psychiatric disabilities. The text combines a careful description of the central theory behind the strategy with pleanty of clinical anecdotes that illustrate its practical, everyday benefits.

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Health workers who provide services to persons with severe mental illness are frequently under enormous stress; burnout is common. Alleviating such stress is the objective of Interactive Staff Training. The book provides rehabilitation and mental health professionals with a strategy to help them and their colleagues work as a well-integrated team. This strategy has been implemented in teams serving more than 10,000 persons with psychiatric disabilities. The text combines a careful description of the central theory behind the strategy with pleanty of clinical anecdotes that illustrate its practical, everyday benefits.

"On Our Own, Together" describes the inner workings of eight successful peer-run services for mental health consumers, including drop-in centers, educational programs, and peer support/mentoring programs. Written by people who developed such programs, it reveals these services as a valuable resource within the mental health system and a precious necessity for many consumers.

The book clusters the COSPs into three key types: drop-in centers, which provide varied services for their members, including meals, housing assistance, and stigma-free environments; educational programs, which train mental health consumers in recovery skills for themselves and for other consumers; and services based on peer support and mentoring.

Despite their differences, the book shows, the programs share many essential characteristics. Most significantly, they demonstrate the benefits of allowing mental health consumers to operate and govern their own organizations. Also important is their emphasis on equality, mutuality, empowerment, recovery, belonging, and hope in administering services. Such core values, the book suggests, distinguish peer-run programs from the professional services that have long dominated the mental health system.

In contrast to the dry, clinical reports that make up much of the current literature, this book is written "from the inside out" and, for the most part, by the people who developed the programs and who live them every day. It reveals peer-run programs as valuable resources within the mental health system and, indeed, a precious necessity for many consumers.