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Senior Behavioral Health Services Project

University of California, San Francisco
Creating Community Partnerships

Contact:

Heather Bornfeld, Ph.D.
Project Coordinator
401 Parnassus Avenue
UCSF Department of Psychiatry
San Francisco, CA  94143-0984
415-476-7762
hbornfeld@lppi.ucsf.edu

Program Description:

The purpose of the Senior Behavioral Health Service (SBHS) for Assisted Living is to provide comprehensive depression and agitation management for residents in assisted living facilities in the San Francisco area.  The SBHS trains both assisted living facility staff and providers in agencies (such as the Family Service Agency of San Francisco [FSA]) that provide outreach and mental health services to seniors.  This training focuses on evidence-based practices (EBPs) for depression and agitation management.

The University of California, San Francisco has created a partnership with mental health providers to train, implement, and evaluate a collaborative care approach to management of these common and significant problems in assisted living.  The SBHS has developed a model, based on Wagner’s Chronic Illness Management Model, in which a team of geriatric mental health specialists provide direct service, consultation, and staff training and support to assisted living facilities.  The objectives of the SBHS are to:

  1. Develop and train a senior behavioral health team that is expert in evidence-based depression and agitation management for very old and frail elderly residing in assisted living.
  2. Train assisted living staff in the day-to-day management of depression and agitation.
  3. Develop a mechanism by which immediate consultation regarding depression and agitation is available to assisted living facilities that contract for the Senior Behavioral Health Team services.
  4. Adjust the model of care for individual facilities and counties based on results from the program’s process evaluation and feedback from its consumer and professional advisory boards.
  5. Disseminate the success of this model and find means to sustain it after this funding ends.

This model depends on the dissemination of EBPs related to geriatric mental health, specifically in regard to the treatment of depression and agitation related to dementia.  The route of dissemination begins with treatment experts who provide training and education to mental health clinicians.  These clinicians, in turn, provide a variety of direct services, as well as training and treatment support to professional and para-professional staff that work each day with the target population.  The long-term vision of the SBHS is to establish a pathway through which EBPs can be disseminated into the community and become an integral part of applied best practices with residents in assisted living facilities.