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Article Excerpt
Increasingly, the counseling profession has begun endorsing the need for counselors to collaborate with clients, families, and communities (Constantine, Hage, Kindaichi, & Bryant, 2007; Lee, 1998). Collaboration that reaches beyond the counselor's office to the community is important for family counselors (Boyd-Franklin, 2003), community and mental health counselors (Lewis, Lewis, Daniels, & D'Andrea, 2003), and school counselors alike (Bryan, 2005). Solutions to the complex mental health issues that many clients face lie in engaging family and community members as partners in the treatment process and in social action when necessary (Kiselica & Robinson, 2001; Prilleltensky & Prilleltensky, 2003). Moreover, individual interventions are insufficient to solve the pervasive psychological and systemic effects of oppression, discrimination, and stigma that some clients (e.g., minority and poor clients; clients with mental illness, disabilities, or HIV/AIDS) confront on a daily basis (Constantine et al., 2007; Kiselica & Robinson, 2001; Lee, 1998; Lewis et al., 2003). Hence, it is important that counselors use systemic strategies such as client-family-community partnerships to enhance direct counseling services to clients; increase advocacy for the removal of systemic barriers; and promote mental health change and client, family, and community empowerment.
Despite the importance attributed to collaboration in counseling, there is a dearth of models to guide counselors' efforts to engage clients, their families, and communities in partnerships that promote mental health and social action. Doherty and Mendenhall (2006) presented one such model in their article Citizen Health Care: A Model for Engaging Patients, Families, and Communities as Co-Producers of Health published in the American Psychological Association's journal Families, Systems, and Health. In their article, Doherty and Mendenhall described origins of the model, principles and strategies for implementation, examples of model projects, how the model differs from other community-based collaborative models, lessons learned, and future directions. The current article provides a summary of the central aspects of their Citizen Health Care Model and discusses implications for counselors and counselor educators.
The Citizen Health Care Model (Doherty & Mendenhall, 2006) guides professionals in the process of engaging clients, their families, and communities in partnerships to find solutions to health concerns that affect clients and their communities. According to Doherty and Mendenhall, "the driving mission of citizen health care is to create a democratic model of health care that unleashes the capacity and energy of ordinary citizens as co-producers of health for themselves and their communities" (p. 262). When professionals and citizens unite in democratic relationships, they release collaborative energy and power that influence and change their world. Family therapists and other professionals have used the model to partner with citizens to address problems associated with diabetes, depression, overscheduling of middle class children, isolation of newly married couples, and challenges of new parents in urban settings. In this article, the term citizens refers to patients, their families, and community members whom professionals can engage to find solutions to health challenges.
* Principles and Strategies of the Citizen Health Care Model
Doherty and Mendenhall (2006) posited that change in health care rests ostensibly on a reciprocal dynamic between professionals and their patients who are invaluable assets as co-creators of health. They outlined seven action strategies for implementing their model: (a) professionals garner support from administrators and leaders; (b) professionals identify a pressing health concern for both professionals and a community of citizens; (c) professionals identify citizens with leadership potential who have personal experience with the health concern; (d) professionals convene a professional-citizen planning team that includes three or four community members; (e) the initial planning team expands by inviting more citizens with leadership potential to join; (f) the full team defines, designs, and implements the...
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