Employees

Program Description

The program was incorporated as a not for profit in 1984. The mission of New Views is to clinically treat, educate and encourage those individuals with concurrent diagnosis of Co-Occurring Disorders (Mental Illness and Chemical Abuse), needing to participate in the recovery process, support their family systems and provide education to mental health and addiction health care professionals. The program is divided into two components in order to accomplish the clinical and educational goals.

Clinical programming is provided specifically to clients who are residents of Greystone Park Psychiatric Hospital. New Views is an independent consultant to the hospital accepting self referrals from the hospitals admission unit. The Education Center is designed to provide a full range of alcohol/substance abuse services which include, screening, assessment, individual counseling sessions, group therapy, and extensive education topics related to the clients acceptance and understanding of their mental illness as well as the disease concept of their substance abuse diagnosis with much attention given to relapse prevention. Click here for our Program Model.

In order to address the needs of identified goals of the individual patient involved in the program, a variety of treatment modalities are used. These would include, but not be limited to Individual Sessions, Lectures, Therapy Groups, Topic Focused Groups, and Coaching for change.

The modalities of treatment for the clientele are tailored to meet their needs as is the modalities used to further educate their families and those professionals providing treatment within the community. As identified in the current trends within Mental Health, a focus is placed largely on providing and teaching the clientele proper coping skills, other than alcohol and/or illicit chemical use, to deal with personal feelings, beliefs, and daily issues and to also remain on medications as prescribed by his doctor. In doing so the goal set forth is for the clientele to receive further services within the community setting with fewer returns to inpatient psychiatric settings.

Throughout the educational aspect of the program, a great deal of emphasis is placed on the concept that a patient must remain on their medication as prescribed and clean from alcohol and/or illicit chemicals in order to reach and maintain their psychiatric stability. Through understanding this concept and applying it to themselves they begin to take responsibility for their own treatment and program for recovery. In turn they learn that even though they have no control over having a mental illness or chemical addiction, they do have personal control on what they can do about it for their personal treatment. In this way, one is taught they they have the "CHOICE TO CHANGE."

With numerous topics presented through the treatment experience, all are presented and discussed to further support their change for stabilization. Briefly, some areas which would be covered would include 12 Step Support Groups, Sponsorship, Medication Interactions, How To Refuse Alcohol and Illicit Chemicals, and Consequences of Non-Compliance -- Positive and Negative.

An integral part of the program is the clients' participation in self help meetings (Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous). This activity prepares them to enter the self help community upon discharge. Clients average about five months in the program. Many return to the community and are able to participate in mental health and other supportive programming. By treating the person suffering with concurrent illness, New Views has aided in reducing the number of patients who re-enter Greystone Park due to relapse into addictive addiction.

The Education component of the program functions to provide clinical Co-Occurring Disorders education to community agencies and to hospital staff. A full range of clinical topics can be presented during six hour training sessions. The series focuses on specific clinical areas critical to effective treatment, and is designed to enhance the skills of those in the mental health and alcoholism/drug abuse fields, who work with, or are interested in learning more about the client population who have Co-Occurring Disorders (Mental Illness and Chemical Abuse). It is our belief that the obligation to broaden one's knowledge of this client population is imperative as we work to empower consumers to participate in their own recovery. Click here for our Co-Occurring Academy.

The New Views Treatment Program is dedicated to providing the highest quality clinical treatment services available for persons who suffer with chronic mental illness and chemical dependency problems. We strive to conjointly work with all our clients to fulfill this ideal "Recovery is a process. We believe it is a joint effort--ours and yours; that progress with growth is possible. Let's work.....together!"

---------- The New Views Staff