Establishing an education model in integrative mental health

Creating a model for educating new and experienced practitioners in integrative approaches to mental health treatment

Background: In our 2014 White Paper, the International Network of Integrative Mental Health outlines global concerns regarding the prevalence and associated disability related to mental health disorders and the inadequacy of the Western-biomedically oriented system in restoring health and relieving suffering. Initially, we were a membership organization primarily with a web-based presence. It became clear that the greatest need of individuals seeking to enhance their knowledge and repertoire of skills in integrative mental health was for educational seminars and formal and informal support of incorporation of those skills into practice. Our current emphasis as an organization is to provide education to mental health practitioners, in training, in early career development, and for experienced clinicians. The geographical hub of our programming is in Red Bank, NJ at the New Jersey Center for the Healing Arts, and our board of directors is made up of expert psychiatrists and mental health professionals from around the world.

Mental health professionals are seeking a new paradigm, given chronicity of problems and limited response to current treatments. Effective integrative treatments are available, encompassing mind-body approaches dietary and lifestyle changes, the guided use of nutritional supplements, culturally-based whole systems approaches, and innovative psychotherapies. Unfortunately, practitioners are challenged in acquiring this knowledge and putting it into practice.

Solution: We will offer a series of 6 educational seminars over the course of 1 year, with anticipated attendance by 100-150 clinicians at each seminar. Resources from this grant will be used to:

1. Provide infrastructure and administrative support for the lecture series.

2. Establish an interactive web-based platform for attendees to participate in, to share their experiences and gain knowledge from more senior colleagues.

3. Develop a webinar platform to allow individuals to attend workshops remotely or view them later.

4. Additionally, we will pilot the establishment of remote group consultation for trainees, to enhance their knowledge and implementation of skills.

The impact of this program over the 1st year primarily will be regional. If successful, options will be to set up similar programs in other regions of the US and internationally through our colleagues, particularly in the EU and Australia.

Reference: Sarris J, et. al. Integrative mental healthcare White Paper: Establishing a new paradigm through research, education, and clinical guidelines. Adv Integr Med. 2014.

Our current educational model does not allow for a busy mental health clinician in training or practice to participate in a series of educational seminars and supplement this with peer and senior clinician support in the area of integrative mental health. This is designed as a pilot program and given our network of senior integrative mental health professionals in the States and abroad, we will have the ability to expand programming to other regions in subsequent years.

Running the seminars described is well within our wheelhouse. To make attendance and participation in the full series practical for a busy trainee or clinician, we will need to have a webinar platform to allow viewing at a remote time or place. To allow individuals to process, consolidate, and implement the knowledge and skills they are learning about, they will need to have a forum to share ideas with colleagues and senior clinicians. This can include a web-based forum as well as remote group consultation.

Independent of this grant, we will be establishing a lecture series for mental health clinicians in integrative mental health. Pertinent to the support of Solve, our goals include: to incorporate a webinar component to the training to allow individuals to attend at a remote time or place; to develop an on-line forum to allow attendees to share experiences enhance knowledge; to pilot a group consultation program; and to set up QA to allow us to improve programming in preparation for expansion. 

Our primary hope is to establish high quality educational programming. The integration of technologically oriented services will allow this experience to extend beyond the in-person seminars and allow trainees and clinicians to greatly enhance implementation of knowledge and skills into their practice.

Beyond the immediate regional impact, we anticipate that within 3-5 years, we will expand programming. This may take the form of establishing other core sites implementing the same curriculum. While we prefer direct personal contact, we may find a greater need for distance learning, which could lead us to shift programming in the future.

Our consumers will be mental health clinicians and trainees and through their work, there is the potential for wide benefit among individuals with mental health difficulties. Given the networking of NJCHA in the New York/New Jersey areas, we will promote the educational programming in that region.

Formal educational programming, as described in this proposal, is a new endeavor for our organization.

We anticipate that 100-150 mental heath clinicians and students will attend each of 6 educational seminars over the next year. Hopefully, most of them will attend a majority of sessions, although some may attend only 1 or 2. Consequently, we may have as many as 250-400 individuals participating in programming over the next year. In 3 years, we anticipate that programming will be expanding to other regions or possibly through a greater emphasis on webinars. An ambitious but realistic goal would be 400-600 participants in 3 years.

The board of INIMH includes experts in the field of integrative mental health. The administrative and clinical staff of NJCHA is closely networked in the Northern New Jersey/New York Metropolitan area and has expertise in clinical care and education.

The educational seminars should generate sufficient revenue to support the administrative services and allow for a modest honorarium for faculty. Any revenue over expenses will be used to further enhance future services. This may take the form of establishing core programs in other locations, enhancing webinar programming, and setting up resources for remote group consultation to the program attendees.

INIMH began as a membership organization, with primary presence on the internet. It has become clear that the greatest need for mental health professionals wishing to develop skills in integrative mental health is for educational seminars. While we have the resources to create these in a financially viable way, the support from Solve will be used to enhance the experience for attendees, develop the technological components to enhance the program, and provide for QA of programming. This will help us prepare for expanding programming to a larger audience, in the States and abroad.

"If we build it will they come". We hope busy mental health clinicians will be able to commit to attending all 6 of our programs, along with participating in web-based and video support services. We will devote much of the funds to technological support to allow: the development of a webinar format to allow individuals to attend remotely or view the programming at a different time; the creation of a forum for participants to provide mutual support and seek consultation from senior clinicians; and to establish and pilot a remote peer/senior clinician consultation program.