ABSTRACT
Assertive Community Treatment (ACT) is a widely recognized and effective evidence-based practice (EBP) for the treatment of “serious” mental illness (SMI). SMI is also known as “major” or “severe and persistent” mental illness. ACT, sometimes known as PACT (Program of Assertive Community Treatment), can simply be described as a combination of case management and psychiatric treatment delivered by a mobile team. It borrows from the old social work casework model in that it maintains “a dual focus on the client and the environment, working directly with and indirectly on behalf of individual clients and families in need” (National Association of Social Workers, 1992). As opposed to case management, the team does not broker (i.e., bring the consumer to) treatment services, but actually delivers them, including medication, assessment, advocacy, family counseling, and crisis intervention (Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration [SAMHSA], 2008). Services are delivered to the consumers and their support network (families, friends, caregivers, residence staff) in the community, that is, in their home, place of work, and offices and stores in the neighborhood or town (Kopelowicz, Liberman, & Zarate, 2007). It is recognized as an EBP by the U.S. federal government (the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) and the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA)), the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), most U.S. states, several other nations, the National Association of State Mental Health Program Directors (NASMHPD), and the influential Dartmouth Psychiatric Research Center (DPRC; formerly the New Hampshire Dartmouth PR Center).
