Community Integration: Supporting People In Getting What They Want

Registration begins February 16, 2010 (Register Online)

Cost: $125 for individuals. $500 for up to 5 individuals at your organization. Additional discounts are available for organizations with 10 or more registrants. Payment is by major credit card only.

Course Description

For purposes of this online course, community integration is defined as the policies, programs, and practices that enable people with psychiatric disabilities to have a meaningful life in the community. While community integration has been a goal for people in mental health recovery since the time of deinstitutionalization, the public mental health field has struggled with the meaning of true integration, as well as with how to develop successful models and practices to support people in communities of their own choosing. With the emergence of self-determination and recovery concepts, the opportunity has arisen to reconsider the definition, concepts, policies, and practices to support community integration for people with psychiatric disabilities.

In this 6-module course, faculty of the Penn Collaborative on Community Integration of Individuals with Psychiatric Disabilities provide an overview of community integration that is based on self-determination values, disability theory, research evidence, and successful practices. Learners will accomplish the following objectives:

• Develop a better understanding of the current state of community integration for individuals with serious mental illnesses;
• Be able to define community integration and understand how community integration is related to community participation, well-being, and recovery;
• Be able to identify the key principles for promoting community integration in the delivery of housing, employment, education, spiritual, leisure, social, citizenship, and empowerment programs;
• Be familiar with examples of how people in recovery, families, providers, agency administrators, and policy makers can better support community integration; and
• Be able to identify key strategies to meet the challenges of promoting community integration.

All instruction and instructional materials are web based. Each of the 6 modules includes a 30-minute lecture (Windows Media), downloadable Powerpoint Presentations (Adobe PDF), homework assignments (included in the slide presentation), and required readings from a list of selected readings (Adobe PDF). Text transcripts are posted for all audio lectures. Your computer must have the system requirements listed below to benefit from the series. The first 20 registrants will be subscribed to an email discussion list. Discussion list participants will have the opportunity to post comments and ask questions of the course faculty. All other registrants will have access to an archived transcript of the the discussion list postings.

Continuing Education

• NASW Credits: This course is approved by the National Association of Social Workers
  (provider #886456556 ) for 6 continuing education contact hours.
• USPRA CPRP Credits: The UIC National Research and Training Center (UIC NRTC) on Psychiatric Disability is approved by the United States Psychiatric Rehabilitation Association (Provider #102) to sponsor continuing education for Certified Psychiatric Rehabilitation Practitioners (CPRP). Course completion is approved for 6 CPRP continuing education contact hours.

System Requirements

Each participant must have his or her own e-mail address and Internet access. Hardware required: your computer must have a sound card, speakers or headphones. Software required: it is strongly that you use use the Internet Explorer web browser, version 5 or later. Later versions of Mozilla Firefox are compatible, but they require that you have an additional plug-in (available here) installed. Also required are Adobe Acrobat Reader (free download), Windows Media Player (free download).

For additional information regarding this or other NRTC courses, please email center4healthandsdc@gmail.com