Implementing and managing the non-clinical psychosocial model of person centered community integrated care

Barriers, tools and opportunities within our communities.

The psychosocial components of being, once considered clinically irrelevant, are recognised as having material impact on physical and mental well-being. Issues of social vulnerability, loneliness, social networks and community structure are slowly being drawn into the health care model.

How we engage at a meaningful level and how we address the wider dimensions of psychosocial health is not without problem of definition, organisation, funding, implementation and frame.

Fully addressing the psychosocial lies not just in meaningful conversation, or in the provision of interests and activities that satiate the hedonistic need. Just as important is the eudaimonic dimension, the opportunity for personal growth and meaning. Tying all these together requires rich social and community habitats that afford opportunities to generate vital social and community networks. Indeed, certain dynamics of social network theory necessitate meaningful interaction at the clinical level.

In The Meaning of Me®: A Canadian blueprint for addressing the complex whole that is the person at the centre of the community-based homecare services model”, Teasdale et al discuss a working framework for addressing the non-clinical psychosocial for those living in place with complex care needs. Briefly, the model starts with knowing the person and meaningful conversation, then to opportunities for engaging in activities and interests, and then to a wider supporting community architecture.

In this talk we extend the model and address inter alia issues of holistic awareness, of organisation, of funding, of social prescribing and social networks, of the need to incorporate social and community objectives into the theory of the firm and of the risks of over institutionalisation of solutions. We also address how social and community networks could be enhanced via community mapping and how technology and cross sector collaboration could be used to address the psychosocial within the complex universe of diverse health care needs and personal preference.