Continuing Care – Mindfuli

Alter Health Group has a mission to serve clients seeking long-term recovery and healing from substance use and mental health disorders.  To support long term positive outcomes, we have designed a virtual continuing care model and it is enabled through a platform called Mindfuli.

Mindfuli’s goal is to assist clients in achieving long-term recovery and personal wellbeing by involving both the client and care team in the treatment planning at the beginning of the treatment process, while the client is in-treatment, and after they have been discharged from our care.

What is Mindfuli?

Mindfuli is a virtual mental health platform designed to provide a wide range of services to effectively address a client’s substance use or mental health disorder and co-occurring issues while also supporting their affected family members. This virtual Continuing Care model was designed to support their journey as part of the client curriculum during their treatment stay and beyond. The client will be onboarding to the platform upon admission to our facilities and shortly after are paired with a Care Counselor to obtain access to this powerful digital peer support model.

Who is the Care Team and what are Care Counselors?

Our Care Team is a team of highly trained peer support staff known as Care Counselors. The Care Team’s goal is supporting the client throughout treatment by maintaining the therapeutic alliance and providing unlimited support.

The Care Counselor is the heart and soul of our service. A Care Counselor will be assigned to clients based on their specific needs and preferences. Clients will also have unlimited access to a 24/7 counselor chat feature, social support groups, and a multitude of assigned exercises. On an as-needed basis, the platform also has an option for tiers of continuing care that include sessions with a licensed therapist.

What is the goal of the Mindfuli continuing care model?

The Mindfuli Continuing Care model was developed as a supplemental set of tools to assist our clients in the treatment of substance use and mental health issues. The model’s design will provide support on their journey towards continued recovery, enhance their treatment experience while assisting their goals of becoming self‐sufficient, building self-esteem and more positive self-evaluation or well-being, reaching personal and professional goals, re-engaging with family, having more stable social relations, growing as an individual, and connecting with their true purpose.

As we learned during the COVID-19 pandemic, social isolation became common in a world where human interaction is vital. Especially to the population affected by addiction and mental health disorders.  Feelings of isolation and loneliness in older adults have been associated with depression, anxiety, poor sleep quality, substance use, and other health related worries (Kotwal et al., 2020; Gaeta and Brydges, 2020; Sepúlveda-Loyola et al., 2020).

Social networks are a large predictor in promoting resilience to stress, trauma, and other mental health symptoms (Sippel et al. 2015). Research shows us that this type of virtual continuing care model can significantly contribute to reducing these traumas and other mental health symptoms, increase quality of life and personal wellbeing, and aid in continued recovery from other factors directly affecting symptomatology.

Internet- and mobile-based interventions (IMIs) may represent the most promising instruments in tertiary prevention (Hennemann et al. 2018). In fact, Meta-analytic evidence has proven the effectiveness of aftercare on mental disorders in reducing symptom severity or recurrence and enhancing functionality by way of mobile psychosocial interventions, psychotherapy, and psychosocial rehabilitation (Berkhof et al., 2012, MacDonald et al., 2016, & Henneman et al., 2018). The data consistently shows that those with mental health conditions, including serious mental illnesses such as bipolar disorder, major depressive disorder, and schizophrenia have major interest in digital mental health offerings and increased access to smartphones or other tech-enabled means makes this option viable in the present times. This consistently creates opportunities for clinical or sub-clinical interventions through these portals (Hoffman et al., 2020).

As seen in the chart below, Evans & Fisher (2022) found that social isolation is directly associated with higher levels of anxiety and depression and that those in situations of social isolation tend to be more sensitive to the nuanced ways in which social support is delivered. The authors found that those with means of that social support benefit greatly as evidenced by a reduction of symptoms of anxiety and depression.

Regarding substance use disorders, the data shows us that this type of care can significantly contribute to continued sobriety, increased quality of life, personal wellbeing, and the decrease in other mental health symptoms among many other factors. In fact, a 12-month outcome study by Proctor, Wainwright, & Herschman (2017) found that when patients attended continuing care (Aftercare, virtual care) within 7 days of discharging from treatment improved outcomes as follows:

The Mindfuli Continuing Care model ensures this type of social support is available and enjoyable. Part of the Continuing Care model is to engage clients with social support networks that continue to strengthen as engagement in the program continues. In a time of such disconnection researchers such as Saltzman, Hansel, & Bordnick (2020) profess that technology needs to be leveraged to raise awareness of self-care and the use of techniques to promote well-being. Mindfuli is a large piece of this puzzle.

How does the Mindfuli platform work?

The Continuing Care model is delivered in a Care pathway that is individualized based on client needs, demographics, and the strength of the Therapeutic Alliance between client and Care Counselor. When the client is onboarded, they are asked to take the very same assessment that their Care Counselors take as staff.  This allows the platform to appropriately match them with counselors with which they will have the strongest therapeutic alliance. After being paired, the client will engage with one of our pathways that are individualized depending on where the client is on their journey.

Are there social support services offered through the Continuing Care Model?

The goal of Mindfuli is to meet, connect, support, and help the client to rebuild, wherever they are on their journey to mental wellness.  We connect the client to the needed resources, teach them functional life skills, and provide them with linkages in the community in every way needed using an evidence-based case management model.  Those linkages include medical, dental, and other ancillary services. We also connect the client to agencies that will provide financial, educational, vocational, economic, and stable housing support.

How does Mindfuli help clients with these resources?

We provide referrals to any ancillary service and functional skill the client may need, including but not limited to:

Financial– Education on financial literacy, referrals to financial advisor resources, support with banking, and other financial needs.

Educational- Assistance with referrals to enrollment counseling, educational advisors, tutoring, and more.

Vocational- Specialized vocational and employment counseling to include resume building, job skills training, interviewing techniques, job search education, & more.

Economic & Housing Resources- We partner with social services agencies to link out resources for those experiencing economic disparities and/or the inability to sustain secure and stable housing due to their current struggles.

We want you to feel safe on your journey. The focus is on the word human in human services.

We use our extensive expertise in navigating complicated resources, so you never have to do it alone. Because we understand the overwhelming impact that these life issues can have on sustaining long-term recovery, our objective is to help you bridge the gaps faced along the way.