Psychosocial Rehabilitation (PSR) Réadaptation Psychosociale
(RPS) Canada promotes psychosocial rehabilitation principles and the growth of
psychosocial rehabilitation practices and programs in Canada. As such, PSR/RPS
Canada is a leader in the transformation of mental health services in this
country.
PSR/RPS Canada is a young organization, being formed in 2001
as the result of an amicable split from the parent organization, the
International Association of Psychosocial Rehabilitation Services (IAPSRS).
PSR/RPS Canada also has Chapters in BC, Manitoba, Ontario
and Nova Scotia. It is also developing a good relationship with AQRP in Quebec.
PSR/RPS Canada members include practitioners, people with
lived experience, their families and administrators, policy makers, researchers
and educators.
What are PSR Principles?
Psychosocial rehabilitation (also termed psychiatric rehabilitation
or PSR) promotes personal recovery, successful community integration and
satisfactory quality of life for persons who have a mental illness or mental
health concern. Psychosocial
rehabilitation services and supports are collaborative, person directed, and
individualized, and an essential element of the human services spectrum. They focus on helping individuals develop
skills and access resources needed to increase their capacity to be successful
and satisfied in the living, working, learning and social environments of their
choice and include a wide continuum of services and supports.
What are PSR Practices?
Psychosocial
rehabilitation (PSR) approaches include programs, services and practices with
well documented effectiveness in facilitating the recovery of persons living
with serious mental illness. PSR approaches focus on programs and practices involving
the major life domains of employment,
education, leisure, wellness, housing, family and peer support.
Specific
examples of approaches include supported employment, supported education,
supported housing, illness management and recovery, integrated approaches for
concurrent disorders, and ACT Teams. PSR approaches are enhanced in their
effectiveness by other treatment approaches and practices, including cognitive
retraining, cognitive behaviour therapies and motivational interviewing.
Because of their effectiveness and
recovery orientation, PSR approaches are important not only to individuals and
their families but also to strategies and initiatives to transform mental
health and programs and services in the United States and Canada. ACT Teams,
for example when operated with fidelity reliably reduce the emergency
psychiatric hospitalization rate in their service areas.
Supported housing and supported
employment also significantly reduce emergency psychiatric hospitalization.
Accordingly, these and other PSR approaches are important tools for recovery as
well as in the transformation to effective, recovery oriented mental health
systems and services in Canada which is a major goal of the Mental Health
Strategy.
PSR Competencies and Education:
To facilitate the adoption of PSR
approaches, it is important that practitioner competencies for PSR and recovery
oriented approaches be identifies and become the basis for practitioner
education and professional development programs. PSR/RPS Canada is currently doing
this work to define PSR competencies as well as promoting and
providing PSR education and professional development.
There are currently three college
programs in PSR in Canada, offered by Humber College, Toronto, Mohawk College,
Hamilton and Douglas College in New Westminster.
Journals:
Members have access to two excellent
journals: Psychiatric Rehabilitation Journal and the Canadian
Journal of Community Mental Health.
