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This Web site is a component of the SAMHSA Health Information Network.

About Evidence-Based Practices KITs: Shaping Mental Health Services Toward Recovery

The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) and its Center for Mental Health Services (CMHS) provide five Evidence-Based Practice KITs (Knowledge Informing Transformation) to promote the use of evidence-based practices in mental health. The KITs were developed as one of several SAMHSA/CMHS activities critical to its science-to-services strategy.

Additional practices for future KITs include:

• Permanent Supportive Housing
• Consumer-Operated Services
• Treatment of Depression in Older Adults
• Supported Education
• Interventions for Disruptive Behavior Disorders
• Mental Health Promotion and Prevention of Behavioral Problems.

The KITs contain many useful resources, including:

• Information sheets for all stakeholder groups
• Introductory videos
• Practice demonstration videos
• Workbook or manual for practitioners.

Each of the five existing Evidence-Based Practices KITs is described below.

Illness Management and Recovery

The Illness Management and Recovery program strongly emphasizes helping people to set and pursue personal goals and to implement action strategies in their everyday lives. The information and skills taught in the program include:

• Recovery strategies
• Practical facts about mental illnesses
• The Stress-Vulnerability Model and treatment strategies
• Building social supports
• Using medication effectively
• Reducing relapses and coping with stress
• Coping with problems and symptoms
• Getting needs met by the mental health system.

Assertive Community Treatment

The goal of Assertive Community Treatment is to help people stay out of the hospital and to develop skills for living in the community, so that their mental illness is not the driving force in their lives. Assertive community treatment offers services that are customized to the individual needs of the consumer, delivered by a team of practitioners, and available 24 hours a day. The program addresses needs related to:

• Symptom management
• Housing
• Finances
• Employment
• Medical care
• Substance abuse
• Family life
• Activities of daily life.

Family Psychoeducation

Family Psychoeducation involves a partnership among consumers, families and supporters, and practitioners. Through relationship building, education, collaboration, problem solving, and an atmosphere of hope and cooperation, family psychoeducation helps consumers and their families and supporters to:

• Learn about mental illness
• Master new ways of managing their mental illness
• Reduce tension and stress within the family
• Provide social support and encouragement to each other
• Focus on the future
• Find ways for families and supporters to help consumers in their recovery.

Supported Employment

Supported Employment is a well-defined approach to helping people with mental illnesses find and keep competitive employment within their communities. Supported employment programs are staffed by employment specialists who have frequent meetings with treatment providers to integrate supported employment with mental health services. The core principles of this program include:

• Eligibility based on consumer choices and preferences
• Supported employment as an integrated treatment
• Continuous follow-along supports
• Help with moving beyond the patient role and developing new employment-related roles as part of the recovery process.

Integrated Treatment for Co-Occurring Disorders

Integrated Treatment for Co-Occurring Disorders is for people who have both mental illness and a substance abuse addiction. This treatment approach helps people recover by offering both mental health and substance abuse services at the same time and in one setting.

This approach includes:

• Individualized treatment, based on a person’s current stage of recovery
• Education about the illness
• Case management
• Help with housing
• Money management
• Relationship and social support
• Counseling designed especially for people with co-occurring disorders.