Rehabilitation and Educational Services, Inc. (RESI), a 501(c)(3) affiliate of RCPA, has been awarded a $25,000 grant from The Staunton Farm Foundation (SFF) for a project that will help provide a better understanding of clients’ experience in substance use treatment.
By exploring the treatment experience, the project, “Client Experience in Substance Use Treatment: A Statewide Inventory,” will provide a powerful tool for evidence-based advocacy. Using one-on-one interviews and journey mapping with clients currently in treatment for substance use, the RESI team will capture, for example, clients’ experience with counselor rapport, facility safety, treatment protocols, regulatory requirements, and care coordination. Ultimately, the project will reveal the granular reality of the treatment experience from the client perspective by identifying specific elements that help a client feel motivated to remain in treatment while examining barriers to treatment entry and treatment retention.
Although SFF’s work to enhance behavioral health treatment and support is focused on the 10-county southwest region of Pennsylvania, RESI intends to conduct this project not only regionally but across the state as well. As such, RESI is continuing to seek additional funding partners statewide.
RESI’s mission is to improve the delivery of services to vulnerable and underserved individuals through research and education of providers, policymakers, lawmakers, the public, and the individuals receiving services through these systems. RESI will achieve its mission predominantly through research-based initiatives, publishing and disseminating its findings to key stakeholders to improve service delivery in multiple ways and at multiple levels.
“We are extremely grateful to The Staunton Farm Foundation for this funding and their confidence in RESI to execute this project,” said RESI Executive Director Jason Snyder. “Using insurance claims data on treatment lengths of stay, early discharges, readmissions and post-discharge follow-up, for example, is inadequate in designing a person-centered system; the client voice and experience must be heard.
“For decades, The Staunton Farm Foundation has been a highly respected organization whose dedication to improving the lives of people who live with mental illness or substance use disorders has had a profound impact on southwestern Pennsylvania. It is a privilege to partner with them on this effort to raise up the very individuals they have long served.”
The Staunton Farm Foundation, which is also a member of RCPA, is dedicated to improving the lives of people who live with mental illness and substance use disorders. The Foundation works to enhance behavioral health treatment, support, and recovery through grant making to nonprofit organizations in 10 southwestern Pennsylvania counties (Allegheny, Armstrong, Beaver, Butler, Fayette, Greene, Indiana, Lawrence, Washington, and Westmoreland).
