Assertive Outreach Teams
Listening to practitioners, and placing the resources where they can make a real impact.
'Strengths' Assertive Outreach: A Review of Seven Practice Development Programmes
The following article was first published in the
Mental Health Review Journal (June 2008) and is reproduced with their kind permission.
Abstract
Assertive outreach is based on extensive international research and has been promoted in the UK in 1999 as a key area of the National Service Framework for Mental Health. Its primary aim is to provide a specialist service for people disengaged from traditional approaches of mental health services, but very little attention has been paid to how such services can be developed. Practice Based Evidence, a practice development consultancy, has engaged seven assertive outreach teams to focus on development first, and follow-up evaluation of the impact of reflective practice on team functioning. This has prompted a number of strengths-based recommendations for changing the way we think about developing services before we engage in research and evaluation.
'Strengths' Assertive Outreach: A Review of Seven Practice Development Programmes
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