Resources

A brief explanation of community based services provided by CSBs. Please contact your local CSB to learn about service availability and customized programs for their respective counties.

Assertive Community Treatment (ACT)

ACT is an intensive, community-based service for individuals whose severe and persistent mental illness has significantly impaired functioning in the community and for whom traditional outpatient treatment has shown minimal effectiveness. A multi-disciplinary team provides a variety of interventions 24/7 including: psychiatry, nursing, case management, peer support, skill building, housing support, alcohol/drug counseling, employment and vocational supports, and other recovery-oriented services.

Behavioral Supports Consultation

Professional-level service that assists participants with significant, intensive and challenging behaviors that interfere with activities of daily living, social interaction, work or similar situations.

Community Access

Designed to help participants acquire, retain or improve self-help, socialization and adaptive skills required for active participation and independent functioning outside the home.

Community Living Support

Services are individually tailored supports that assist with the acquisition, retention or improvement of skills related to participants’ continued residence in their family homes.

Community Residential Alternatives

Available to individuals who require intense levels of residential support in small group settings of four or fewer or in host home/life-sharing arrangements. Services include a range of interventions that focus on training and support in one or more of the following areas: eating and drinking, toileting, personal grooming and health care, dressing, communication, interpersonal relationships, mobility, home management and use of leisure time.

Community Support Teams (CST)

CST provides community-based support for individuals living in rural areas who have a history of hospitalization or incarceration and require more than a traditional outpatient setting to remain in the community. CST assists with: access to necessary services, managing psychiatric and co-occurring diseases, developing community living skills, achieving stable living arrangement, and setting and attaining recovery goals. CST will collaborate with an outpatient psychiatrist and other resources to ensure comprehensive care.

Core Services

Core Services are designed for people with a diagnosed mental illness, and/or co-occurring substance use disorder, whose level of functioning is significantly affected by the behavioral health illness. Services may include nursing assessment, medication administration, case management, peer supports, psychological testing, individual, family or group counseling.

Crisis Respite Homes

Exist in residential settings and provide short-term crisis services. Each home serves up to four individuals who are experiencing an emotional/behavioral change and/or distress that leads to a disruption of essential functions. Placement in Crisis Respite Homes occurs when individuals have not responded to less restrictive crisis interventions.

Disaster Mental Health Services

Promotes and provides continuity of care to individuals receiving services and crisis counseling to the general population during and following disasters. Go to www.georgiadisaster.info for information on how you can prepare.

Group Homes

Licensed homes that serve up to four individuals with developmental disabilities who require intense levels of residential support. Group Homes provide a range of interventions that focus on training and support in one or more of the following areas: eating and drinking, toileting, personal grooming and health care, dressing, communication, interpersonal relationships, mobility, home management and use of leisure time.

Host Homes

Private homes of individuals or families, whether owned or leased, in which life-sharing, residential supports are provided to one or two adults with developmental disabilities, who are not to be related to the occupant owner or lessee by blood or marriage. The homeowners or lessees may not be employed by the provider agency that subcontracts for the host home services.

Individual Directed Goods and Services

Services that are not otherwise be provided through the NOW or Medicaid State Plan may be identified by individuals, support coordinators and interdisciplinary teams, and include services, equipment and supplies.

Individual Support Plan

The range of services an individual receives based on professional determination of need.

Intensive Case Management (ICM) / Case Management (CM)

ICM and CM services are community-based team approaches that support individuals through provision of case management, the goal of which is to support individuals in their journey of recovery while assisting with care coordination, linkage and referral, enhancing life skills, addressing physical health and behavioral health needs, engaging in meaningful activities and building social and community relations.

Mental Health Treatment Court Services

Services for some criminal offenders with a behavioral health illness who are accepted into a local Mental Health Court program and agree to seek treatment as an alternative to incarceration. Eligibility for mental health court treatment depends on the crime and is offered at the discretion of the presiding judge for that court. Individuals participate in assessment and treatment and peer support, along with monitoring and other supervised requirements.

Mobile Crisis Services

Dispatches Mobile Crisis Teams (MCTs) to crisis locations for individuals with developmental disabilities. MCT members are responsible for completing comprehensive assessments of each crisis situation and mitigating risks to health and safety of individuals in crisis and/or others. MCTs also make referrals to intensive crisis services or hospital emergency rooms if necessary.

Natural Support Training

Exists for individuals who provide unpaid support, training, companionship or supervision to participants.

Peer Support, Wellness, and Respite Centers

These centers are peer-run alternatives to a traditional mental health day program and a diversion from psychiatric hospitalization. Centers have three respite beds each which can be occupied by a participant who is not in crisis, but who needs extra support for up to 24-hours a day, and does not require a hospital setting. A person can use a respite bed for up to seven nights. The Peer Support, Wellness, and Respite Centers of Georgia are projects of the Georgia Mental Health Consumer Network..

Peer Services

Provides a variety of Peer Support services for persons diagnosed with a behavioral health illness. Certified Peer Specialists are trained to use their lived experience with and in recovery to provide hope, encouragement, understanding, knowledge, and support to others living with similar diagnoses and situations. Individual and group Peer Support services are available in treatment agencies and non-clinical community settings, as well as via 24/7 warm phone lines. To learn more, look up “peer support” at www.gmhcn.org.

Prevocational Services

Prepares participants for paid or unpaid employment and include teaching concepts such as compliance, attendance, task completion, problem solving and safety.

Projects for Assistance in Transition from Homelessness (PATH)

PATH is a grant funded program designed to support the delivery of outreach services to individuals with serious mental illness and those with co-occurring substance use disorders who are homeless or at imminent risk of becoming homeless. PATH’s homeless outreach teams in Atlanta, Marietta, Columbus, Augusta, Valdosta, and Savannah outreach into the streets and homeless shelters to identify people who are chronically homeless and highly vulnerable to health risks. The teams use assertive engagement strategies to help people access housing and resources needed to end their homeless cycle.

Respite Services

Provides brief periods of support or relief for individuals with disabilities or their caregivers and include maintenance respite for planned or scheduled relief or emergency/crisis respite for a brief period of support for participants experiencing crisis (usually behavioral) or in instances of family emergency.

Specialized Medical Equipment

consists of devices, controls or appliances specified in the Individual Service Plan, which enable participants to increase their abilities to perform activities of daily living and to interact more independently with their environment.

Specialized Medical Supplies

Consist of food supplements, special clothing, diapers, bed wetting protective sheets and other authorized supplies specified in the Individual Service Plan.

Supported Employment (SE)

Individual Placement and Support (IPS) is available to eligible individuals, who express a desire and have a goal for competitive employment; and who, due to the impact and severity of their mental illness have recently lost employment, or been underemployed or unemployed on a frequent or long term basis. Services include supports to access benefits counseling; identify vocational skills and interests; and develop and implement a job search plan to obtain competitive employment in an integrated community setting that is based on the individual’s strengths, preferences, abilities, and needs.

Transportation

Services enable participants to gain access to waiver and other community services, activities, resources, and organizations typically utilized by the general population. These services do not include transportation available through Medicaid non-emergency transportation or as an element of another waiver service.

Do you need ASL Services or an ASL Interpreter?

To facilitate accommodations for individuals who are deaf, hard of hearing or deaf-blind contact Avita Deaf Services

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