A community-driven behavioral health approach for older adults: lessons learned

✍ Scribed by Anita H. Wood; Anthony J. Alberta

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2009
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 82 KB
• Volume: 37
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0090-4392
• DOI: 10.1002/jcop.20315

✦ Synopsis

Abstract

This paper examines the lessons learned from the implementation of the Sembrando Salud/Sowing Wellness integrated healthcare program in rural Southeastern Arizona. The isolation and lack of resources characterizing the experience of many seniors in this ethnically diverse community, combined with the impact that depression and diabetes have on their lives, dramatically pointed to the need for depression prevention and treatment activities delivered in a manner that recognizes factors that inhibit participation in behavioral health interventions. The relationship between physical health, especially diabetes, and depression provided an ideal framework for testing a community‐based holistic prevention and treatment approach that eliminated the stigma often associated with mental health illness and treatment. The program philosophy recognizes the consumer as agent of behavioral health change, and provides opportunities for meaningful involvement, including participation in making all program decisions. Dramatic recoveries from depression have resulted from a culturally specific implementation based on community empowerment. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.