Sanctuary Model/ Recovery Model

[FutureRNMichael]

Has anyone in Psych Nursing been introduced to this relatively new topic yet? It's a new thing, from what I hear anyway.

Talks of changing attitudes amongst psychiatric hospital staff and clients/consumers (their new term for patients) as far as the age's and age's old attitudes go in Psych. Introducing a new kind of enviorment on inpatient units of self/consumer policing units, frequent comunitty meetings to implement this and let clients tell others how they felt when so and so tore up the ward and went into restraints, getting completly rid of restraint rooms, no more forcing people to take meds as it gives them the wrong ideas...etc,etc...

I recently attended two seminars on the topic. One small and one large(500 people from all over the west coast). A small-ish acute care ward of 25 or so adult clients in Salem, Oregon has implemented the model and had great success. No restraints and only one or two seclusion's in 1+ years. Only a year or two after the intial implementation of the Sanctuary model.

If your interested in more about the topic, you can read: Sanctuary Model by Sandra Bloom or just ask and I can scan/email you copys of the paperwork given out at the seminar.

EDIT: Found a few links which might be of interest: (http://www.sanctuaryweb.com/main/Sanctuary%20model.htm)

(http://www.sanctuaryweb.com/main/sanctuary_senior_faculty.htm)

[Bjo]

in ohio, we have a similar model called the emerging best practices in mental health recovery. here are a couple of websites. i am on the steering committee for the new model being presented to the employees of the ohio department of mental health. it is a wonderful process but so hard to get people to buy into it considering that the patients (consumers) are the "captains" of their own journey.

http://www.mh.state.oh.us/families-q2.html[/url]

http://www.mhrecovery.com

[elkpark]

These ideas aren't really "new," they just cycle in and out of vogue every decade or so. I remember v. similar ideas being the "newest" thinking in psych tx when I was in nursing school in the early '80s. If you read back, you will find that they've been floating around since at least the anti-psychiatry and humanist movements of the '60s (which may be when they were really new, but maybe not -- there have always been at least a few idealists in the psych community with similar ideas, God love 'em, although they have often been regarded as crackpots by the larger professional community).

Most every unit I've ever worked on has incorporated most of these principles to some degree (some more than others) -- it largely depends on the ideals and philosophy of whoever is running the unit/program. Lots of psychiatric units have that low a restraint and seclusion rate (although, granted, it is often due to cherrypicking of clients).

I don't mean to sound like I'm pooh-poohing the ideas or your interest in them, because I'm definitely not -- they are all wonderful ideas for treating clients as we ourselves would like to be treated; with respect and dignity, lacking far too often in psych treatment, that I have tried to practice throughout my career. Just pointing out that they're not really new. Not much really is, when you think about it ... :) But there are always people, not just in psych, who figure out how to repackage familiar ideas with a new name, write a book, and make some money.