Publication details
Bridging medical and social care in community outreach mental health care
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| Year of publication | 2018 |
| Type | Appeared in Conference without Proceedings |
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| Citation | |
| Description | Mental health care in the Czech Republic is at the threshold of a reform aspiring to “humanize” and “democratize” the psychiatric care. The reform strategy published in 2013 by the Ministry of Health introduced a new unit in the mental health care system: mental health centres that are supposed to provide community outreach care for people diagnosed with severe mental illnesses. Centres are supposed to replace a large number of psychiatric beds. Community based care is not new to mental health field in the country however so far it has been developed mostly within social services more or less far away from the medical care. First centers start operating in 2017 and for the first time the spheres of medical and social care are supposed to cooperate thoroughly. The reform strategy employs words such as “recovery” or “empowerment” but how is it going to work in practice? How are the new teams going to invite peer experience to their daily practice? Professionals from both social and medical background worry that their perspective may be put aside, are they going to develop a shared language? Ethnographic field research conducted in a newly established mental health centre will be discussed. |