Expert public psychiatrists use case studies to share best-practice strategies in this clinically-oriented introduction to community mental health. Today, the majority of psychiatrists work with people who suffer not only from mental illness, but also from poverty, trauma, social isolation and discrimination. They cannot do this work alone, but instead are part of teams of behavioral health workers navigating larger healthcare and social service systems. In an increasingly complex healthcare environment, mental health clinicians need to master systems-based practice in order to provide optimal care to their patients. The rapid development of public psychiatry training programs is a response to the learning needs of psychiatrists in an evolving system.

The book begins with seven foundational principles of public psychiatry: recovery, trauma-informed care, integrated care, cultural humility, harm reduction, systems of care, and financing care, using cases to bring these concepts to life. Then, using a population health framework, cases are used to explore the typical needs of different age groups or vulnerable populations and to illustrate evidence-based/ best practices that have been employed to meet these needs.

Common to all of the chapters is a focus on the potential of each person, regardless of illness, to achieve personal goals, supported by a clinician who is also an advocate, activist and leader.

About the Author:
Dr. Jeanie Tse is Chief Medical Officer at ICL, a New York City not-for-profit serving people with mental illness and developmental disabilities. She leads ICL and its partners on a number of integrated health initiatives and provides psychiatric care to children and adults in ICL's clinics, assertive community treatment teams, and diverse housing and outreach models. She also serves on the faculty of the NYU and Columbia Public Psychiatry Fellowship Programs, and is past president of the New York Chapters of the American Association of Community Psychiatrists and the American Association of Psychiatric Administrators. Since her training at McGill and Columbia, her aim has been to bridge the gap between academic psychiatry and the clinical challenges of disadvantaged communities.

Dr. Serena Yuan Volpp is Director of the Public Psychiatry Fellowship at the NYU School of Medicine, where she is a Clinical Associate Professor of Psychiatry. She graduated from Harvard/Radcliffe College before receiving her medical degree at the University of California San Francisco School of Medicine. She received a master's in public health from the University of California Berkeley and completed both her psychiatric residency and public psychiatry fellowship at Columbia University. She worked for over ten years at Bellevue Hospital prior to joining the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene in the Assisted Outpatient Treatment Program.