Innovating in Community Mental Health: International Perspectives

Innovating in Community Mental Health presents lively examples of successful attempts to change mental health service systems in innovative ways to achieve the goal of providing care for persons with severe mental illness. These examples are drawn from such diverse national settings as Italy, Russia, Germany, England, China, and the United States, and involve a range of stratgies from treatment teams of professionals, grassroots community organizations, consumer cooperatives, professional-volunteer teamwork, and housing-based alternatives. The stories of these varied innovations are told by established, knowledgeable scholars from each of the featured countries. The editors help us understand the triumphs and pitfalls involved in these innovations through the presentation of a broad, research-based theory of innovation and change, which is used to guide the presentation of the examples and subsequently to determine their similarities and differences.

Through the theoretical framework presented, the nuances of the process of innovation are highlighted, including the importance of the type of innovation itself, the wider environmental influences, place of internal organizational structures, and the role of the individual change agent. Through this framework and the examples presented, the reader is given indications of how innovation and change may be possible in such diverse and seemingly difficult situations, and also of how effective strategies for change might be chosen by administrators, providers, and other policymakers.