CENTER ON CARE FOR SEVERELY MENTALLY ILL

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This is a proposal to continue a center for research on the organization and financing of care for the seriously mentally ill. This Center was funded four years ago at the University of Wisconsin and is locally known as the Mental Health Research Center (MHRC). The overall purpose of the Center is to promote research on the service systems providing care for the seriously mentally ill. This will be accomplished mainly through providing funding and other resources to support pilot projects and other research development. We aim to thus leverage our funds by enabling research groups to effectively compete for independent funding for their projects. The proposal describes some three dozen projects considered for support by the Center over five years. A secondary strategy for promoting this research is to build research infrastructure through enhancing facilities and resources, networking interdisciplinary groups of researchers, training and refocusing researchers into this area, disseminating research information, and building cooperative relationships with administrators and providers of service. Activities in this regard include a research seminar, a Speaker Series, informal research discussion groups, a Research Paper Series, support for training programs, and work with regional providers and administrators of services. The Center will have three emphases in its research agenda: 1) comparative systems research, 2) longitudinal research on client course and "outcome", and 3) rural and small city environments. These are continuing strengths in the Center's research agenda. They will be pursued through promotion of these themes in research support and infrastructure building activities. In addition, the Center proposes to build a research program on methods development. The Center has had four successful initial years. Through its initial efforts, considerable quality research has resulted, new researchers have been brought into the field, substantial service has been rendered to the region and its researchers, providers, administrators, and others. An effective set of organizational structures and procedures have been developed and refined. A set of ongoing Center activities have created a community of cooperating, excellent scholars. This group of Affiliated Researchers who are making this proposal are in a superb position to carry this Center's efforts to even a higher level.