A pragmatic approach to mental health aftercare and partial hospitalization.

Over recent years, there has been increased attention to providing viable community-based alternatives to inpatient psychiatric care. Although there is increased demand for aftercare or daycare social/psychological community treatment, funding sources also mandate more clearcut and precise demonstrations of therapeutic and program effectiveness. This paper describes a pragmatic new approach to daycare for the emotionally disturbed. The central aspects of this approach are: the behavioral identification of clearcut psychosocial treatment goals, contractual negotiation of treatment plans, a skill remediation approach to treatment and objective evaluation of client improvement. By adopting practical and individually-tailored treatment goals and modalities, and by incorporating objective evaluative criteria into a daycare program's treatment components, it is possible to more accurately assess client improvement.