The College of Recovery and Community Inclusion (CRCI) will be launched on October 14, bringing to community mental health practitioners a new web-based curriculum. Developed in collaboration between the Temple University Collaborative on Community Inclusion of Individuals with Psychiatric Disabilities, and the University of Minnesota’s Research and Training Center on Community Living, the CRCI is a convenient, affordable online method of training this essential workforce.

Recently, President Obama announced a 100 million dollar federal research grant to help address mental health issues facing the nation’s veterans. Furthermore, with the advent of the Affordable Care Act, more people will have access to mental health treatment and service. Because of this, the system will certainly grow, and more community mental health practitioners will be required to handle this influx of individuals with mental health conditions.

Well-trained staff will be crucial to the advancement toward mental health recovery.  One of CRCI’s first courses is Seeing the Person First:
Understanding Mental Health Conditions, which involves a person-centered approach to working with individuals with mental health conditions. As Bill Burns-Lynch, Program Coordinator at CRCI, explains, Seeing the Person First will help the community mental health practitioner see the person behind the issue. “This course does not take a strict clinical approach. We believe that the community mental health practitioner should make their relationships with people front-and-center in the process.”

This course serves as an introduction to the experiences and issues that people are living with when they come into contact with the public mental health system. “What does this mean in people’s lives?” Burns-Lynch adds. “It’s not just diagnosis and symptoms, but how does the experience of a mental health condition impact people’s lives?” As practitioners, how can we begin to look more holistically in supporting people to gain their lives back in the community?”

Other CRCI courses will include Mental Health Treatments, Services, and Supports and Cultural Competence in Mental Health Service Settings (to be released late October), among others.

For more information on the College of Recovery and Community Inclusion, please visit: http://directcourseonline.com/recoveryandcommunityinclusion/

Request a demo here!  http://directcourseonline.com/contact/request-a-demo/

For more on the President’s Aid Initiative to Help Study Veterans Mental Health Issues:
http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2013-08-10/business/41261252_1_michelle-obama-veterans-affairs-new-veterans