The Community Network Core is a critical component of the Center's mission to improvethe quality of life of middle-aged and older people with schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders throughthe development, implementation, and dissemination of evidence-based practice through communitypartnership. The goal of the Community Network Core is to nurture a sustainable collaborative researchpartnership between the Center and community clinical and services systems, primarily San Diego county'sAdult and Older Adult Mental Health Services (AOAMHS), whose infrastructure will promote the researchaims of the Center. Based on the models of community-based research and cultural exchange, this Core willpartner with the AOAMHS to collaborate in all stages of research: needs assessment, study design,implementation, interpretation, and dissemination of the results. Other community partners will include theSan Diego chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), the Veterans Affairs San DiegoHealthcare System, community-based psychiatrists and clinics, regional homeless shelters, and othercollaborators. The Community Network Core will seek to build, sustain, and expand communitypartnerships, and to mobilize community support and enhance infrastructure for research capacity. Ourcommunity partners will benefit by obtaining enhanced tangible resources including money, time,information, and access to technical and scientific expertise; the investigators will benefit by being able tostudy diverse populations, acquire 'real world' information to guide the development of interventions andservices, and developing insight and opportunities for improving community practice. The CommunityNetwork Core will evaluate the success of the partnerships on a regular basis using quantitative andqualitative procedures that the Center has developed. This Core will work closely with the other Cores tohelp accomplish the three major themes of the Center: optimizing pharmacotherapy; promoting recoverythrough psychosocial interventions; and developing and adapting assessments and interventions forunderserved subgroups.Relevance: The Community Network Core will be a critical component of the the Center mission ofimproving the quality of life of middle-aged and older people with schizophrenia and other psychoticdisorders in the community, a growing but severely underserved segment of the population.
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