Optimae customers across the company have access to a newly revamped service that provides additional support for their recovery through goal-based work.
Intensive Psychiatric Rehabilitation (IPR) is guided by the values of customer involvement, choice, self-determination and principles drawn from the field of physical rehabilitation. It helps individuals with serious and persistent mental illness achieve goals that improve their success and satisfaction in living, learning, working and socializing.
Iowa’s IPR program was previously dormant due to a lack of certified trainers and practitioners. To provide IPR, trainers must receive specialized training from Boston University. Up until last year, only one person in Iowa qualified to provide training to practitioners.
The program got a lifeline last summer when the state, through a Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration grant, provided training to practitioners and IPR trainers. This allowed Optimae to certify one trainer, Cedar Valley Regional Director Erika Benedict, and a handful of practitioners from across the company.
Iowa also holds monthly IPR practitioner trainer webinars for all participating agencies in the state to continue to grow the program and add to its stability.
Participants who complete IPR have significantly increased earnings and live more independently. They also use significantly less inpatient and day treatment and partial hospitalization than individuals who do not use IPR, according to a Boston University Center for Psychiatric Rehabilitation outcomes study on Iowa’s IPR program.
The IPR program has five goal-directed and time-limited components that include a readiness assessment, readiness development, goal setting, goal achievement and goal keeping. To find out more about the program at Optimae, email Erika Benedict at ebenedict@optimaelifeservices.com.