Collaboration between a state alliance for the mentally ill and a state mental health authority in monitoring the consequences of downsizing.

As consumers are released from hospitalization as a result of the downsizing of inpatient psychiatric facilities, their ability to sustain themselves in the community becomes a concern to a number of constituencies. This article describes the development of a program for monitoring persons who were released from hospitals into the community as a result of the downsizing of state psychiatric hospitals. The program's uniqueness was the collaboration between the state mental health authority and the state Alliance for the Mentally Ill in developing and implementing the monitoring system.