Center for Practice Innovations Brings Behavioral Health Videos and Other Resources to the Community
What is CPI?
The Center for Practice Innovations (CPI) supports the New York State Office of Mental Health’s (OMH) mission to promote the widespread availability of evidence-based practices to improve mental health services, ensure accountability, and promote recovery-oriented outcomes for consumers and families. CPI serves as a key resource to OMH by spreading those practices identified by OMH as most critical to accomplish OMH’s system-transformation initiatives.
Located at the New York State Psychiatric Institute, CPI is directed by Lisa Dixon, M.D., M.P.H. and employs 50+ staff members, many with faculty appointments to Columbia University Psychiatry Department. CPI is celebrating its 10th anniversary of working with behavioral health care and other providers.
What does CPI do?
CPI focuses on practice change and high-fidelity implementation of evidence-based practices for adults diagnosed with serious mental illness. These include: Assertive Community Treatment, Coordinated Specialty Care for First Episode Psychosis (OnTrackNY), Integrated Care, Suicide Prevention, Supported Employment, and Wellness Self-Management.
A second focus is on core competencies necessary for practitioner proficiency: cultural competence, engagement, motivational interviewing, person-centered care, recovery-oriented relationships, shared decision making, and trauma-informed approaches to care.
Distance learning is one key aspect of CPI’s approach. CPI uses a robust learning management system (LMS) that organizes online training resources and monitors learners’ performance. Over 20,000 learners currently use the LMS. There are 100+ online training modules available, with more under development. The LMS also makes available archived webinars and an online library that includes implementation guides, research literature, and other helpful resources. In addition to the content in the LMS, CPI leads live webinars focusing on topics of importance to learners.
CPI provides face-to-face training including workshops and on-site technical assistance.
In addition, CPI creates tools and resources that can be used by learners in real time with recipients of care. These include workbooks, decision aids, and implementation guides.
These approaches are often combined into a “blended” comprehensive training package. Learning collaboratives are an approach that guides agencies or programs that are working towards shared outcomes to work together, learning from one another as well as experts in the field. Data is collected to drive implementation and continuous quality improvement.
Who are CPI’s learners?
CPI trains behavioral health providers (including practitioners, supervisors and managers), primary care providers, health home care managers and their supervisors, managed care organizations’ staff, students, mental health recipients and family members, and other community members.
CPI’s resources for the community
A variety of resources are available to mental health recipients, their families and the community on CPI’s website portal. Over 40 videos, workbooks and other resources are available at no cost. Topics include family and community support, peer services, shared decision making, school or work, and first episode psychosis recovery stories.
This brief video, “Considering Work”, is one of the available resources. It provides an important and inspiring message about employment for individuals diagnosed with serious mental illness and the CPI’s resources for the communitysupports available to them that help find real jobs that reflect their interests and goals.
For further information about CPI, please contact Paul Margolies, Ph.D. at Paul.Margolies@nyspi.columbia.edu and visit http://practiceinnovations.org/.