Kitsap Mental Health Services’ new Program for Assertive Community Treatment just received the highest rating in the state for new PACT teams. PACT is an Evidence-Based Practice (its success is well supported by research) and is designed to help persons diagnosed with severe and persistent mental illness attain and maintain community tenure. This new team became fully functional on July 1, 2007, as a result of funding provided by the Washington State Mental Health Division (MHD) to start PACT teams across the state.

“If it weren’t for the compassion and services from the PACT Team, I would either be back at Western, strung out on the streets, or dead.” This quote is from a client who had been at Western State Hospital for nearly 10 years prior to being admitted to the team at Kitsap Mental Health Services’ (KMHS).

The MHD’s initial visit to the team was to assess the team’s adherence to the PACT model. Their initial report, finalized on February 4^th, documents their findings and recommendations on a 48-point fidelity scale, with each item rated on a 5-point scale, ranging from 1 (not implemented) to 5 (fully implemented). According to the MHD, expectations for new teams such as KMHS’ would be to average scores in the mid-twos. The overall fidelity rating for the new KMHS PACT team from this initial review is 4.02, the highest in the state.

The PACT team at KMHS began providing services in July and is building towards its capacity of forty-two to fifty clients. Clients are admitted to the team at the rate of four to six per month and priority is given to those requiring extensive services to avoid hospitalization. The PACT team provides services twenty-four hours per day, seven days per week, and is often referred to as “a hospital without walls”. True to the model, a minimum of eighty-five percent of service contacts with clients occur in community settings, not at the mental health center.

Kitsap Mental Health’s team maintains a ratio of no more than eight clients per clinician and includes a full-time Peer Specialist, trained and certified by the Washington State Mental Health Division. The Peer Specialist represents the viewpoint of what it’s like to actually be a service recipient at a community mental health center, and serves as a translator of client perspective to other team members. Additionally, the team has its own medical provider, registered nurses, and master’s and bachelor’s level clinicians with specialties in therapy, vocational services, and drug and alcohol treatment.

The Kitsap Mental Health Services PACT team is one of ten new teams funded by the state legislature and is designed to reduce the frequency and duration of hospital stays, while providing the best possible community-based services to community mental health center clients.