Contemporary Problems

Community support services is a community-based service, aimed to help individuals with substance abuse and/or a mental health diagnosis cope with basic living through person centered goals and a treatment plan. The client’s receiving community support services suffer from substance abuse or have a mental health diagnosis that range in severity, from temporary ones such as: adjustment disorder to more permanent ones such as: bipolar disorder. Clients qualify for community support services based on an entrance criterion, usually outlining their substance abuse dependency or mental health diagnosis as being severe enough that it puts that person at the likely risk of not being able to function normally and eventually for institutionalization of some sort. The purpose of community support services is to get the client back on track with a treatment plan, support team, long and short-term goals, and interventions that focus on skill building.

The set treatment plans are meant to work according to the person’s individual needs with certain standards that are set by the state in which the services are rendered. Once an individual is assessed by a clinician, the targets for that person are based on their mental health, the specific goals the client would like to work on, and the interventions set by the support team. “Community Support Services serves a target population of individuals who meet specified criteria that includes a mental illness diagnosis, duration of illness and degree of disability the illness has caused, as well as imminent risk of institutionalization. Consumers of CSS services will have been diagnosed with serious psychiatric conditions such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder or major depression; may have been hospitalized at least once in their lifetime or who have been institutionalized for long periods of time; have difficulty with social relationships, meeting their basic needs, maintaining a home or a job; or require court ordered...