Developing Welcoming Systems for Individuals with Co-Occurring Disorders

This paper reviews a best practice model for design and implementation of system-wide integrated services for individuals with co-occurring disorders, and illustrates the application of that model to the implementation of the specific clinical attitude and practice of welcoming in a number of ongoing Comprehensive Continuous Integrated System of Care (CCISC) projects. Welcoming, while not formally an “evidence based best practice,” is a clinical service delivery standard that also creates a strategic energy to promote implementation of other best practice interventions. Given that CCISC can be designed within the resource base of any system, and given that initial projects have been able to describe some early success in creating meaningful shifts in clinical practice, the model appears to have some face value in application to complex systems. Clearly, more formal evaluation of system, program, and client outcomes from CCISC projects is needed; the authors are currently in the process of designing such evaluation studies.