Office of Technical Assistance

(formerly NTAC)

The Office of Technical Assistance ("OTA") provides focused, state-of-the-art technical assistance and consultation to State Mental Health Agencies, state mental health planning and advisory councils, consumers, and families to help ensure that the best practices and most up-to-date knowledge in mental health and related fields are translated into action at the state and local levels.

OTA’s mission includes assisting its core constituents (state mental health agencies) to implement the goals and recommendations of the President’s New Freedom Commission on Mental Health final report, Achieving the Promise: Transforming Mental Health Care in America. All technical assistance requests are required to meet/address at least one of the six goals in this New Freedom Commission report.

OTA continually scans the environment to identify key trends and issues that impact mental health service delivery through the following activities: 1) On-Site Training and Technical Assistance; 2) Knowledge Transfer Support and Training; and 3) National Experts’ Meetings.

(1) Regional and State-based On-Site Training and Technical Assistance
OTA delivers customized, on-site technical assistance to State Mental Health Agencies, state mental health planning and advisory councils, consumers, families, and other organizations on a variety of issues including co-occurring disorders, disaster mental health planning and response, and trauma topics such as seclusion and restraint reduction and eventual elimination.

(2) Knowledge Transfer Support and Training
Many, if not most, of the foremost experts on issues impacting the design, delivery and evaluation of public mental health services reside within the systems themselves. These experts are often employees of state mental health agencies, consumers of services, family members, planning and advisory council members, or others. This peer-to-peer information sharing plays a critical role in knowledge development, transfer and application within the field of mental health and other fields as well (evidence-based practice, reducing the use of seclusion and restraint, and alternative dispute resolution).

(3) National Experts Meetings
National experts meetings are an important catalyst to stimulate thinking about the critical and emerging topics affecting public mental health systems. Experts meetings offer the opportunity to synthesize knowledge, build consensus, generate momentum, and provide decision makers with the “best” data and thoughts around a pressing policy or practice issue.

(4) Assistant to the non-TSIG states.
Training and technical assistance (T & TA) is available through OTA to help states transform their mental health systems. Workshops in Albuquerque, NM on April 10-11 and Philadelphia, PA on May 3-4 will feature 10 T & TA models for State Mental Health Commissioners and their directors to learn about available resources to help them transform their state systems. Additional information about the non_TSIG project is available here.

(5) Seclusion and restraint technical assistance coordinating center. The Alternatives to Restraint and Seclusion State Infrastructure Grant Project (S/R-SIG) is an initiative of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s (SAMHSA) Center for Mental Health Services (CMHS), designed to promote the implementation and evaluation of best practice approaches to preventing and reducing the use of seclusion and restraint (S/R) in mental health settings.

The Technical Assistance Coordinating Center contract was awarded to NASMHPD’s National Technical Assistance. NASMHPD’s OTA coordinates with CSR, Incorporated to conduct the evaluation of state activities under this initiative. The Coordinating Center works in collaboration with a number of stakeholders including a ten-member Steering Committee; the state grantees; OTA, and CMHS.

For more information on the S/R TA coordinating center, please go here.

Other training and technical assistance

In addition to the S/R-SIG Coordinating Center, OTA continues its role as a SAMHSA funded technical assistance center to provide training and technical assistance to state mental health agencies on reducing and eliminating the use of seclusion and restraint, using a prevention-based training curricula called The Six Core Strategies© to Create Violence-Free and Coercion-Free Mental Health Treatment Environments. OTA staff and faculty have to date trained over 46 state delegations, comprised of senior state provider leadership staff, using this framework. OTA also has technical assistance materials in the public domain that are available to any interested party.

Several of the most recent documents are below:

•White Paper, "Restraint and Seclusion: A Risk Managemant
Guide" (pdf)
• Technical Paper, Phase II Technical Report, "Mental Health: What Helps and What Hinders?" (pdf)
• White Paper, "Responding to Childhood Trauma: The Premise and Practice of Trauma Informed Care" (pdf)
• Policy and Procedure on Debriefing for Seclusion and Restraint Prevention/Reduction Projects (pdf)
• Six Core Strategies© to Reduce the Use of Seclusion and Restraint Planning Tool (pdf)
• A Snapshot of Six Core Strategies© for the Reduction of S/R(pdf)

OTA Technical Assistance

Apply for OTA
Technical Assistance

Publications

For more information,
e-mail us at OTAinfo@nasmhpd.org

NASMHPD is a proud partner with the National Center for Trauma-Informed Care.

NEW!
White Paper, "Restraint and Seclusion: A Risk Managemant Guide"

White paper, Organizational Stress as a Barrier to Trauma-Sensitive Change and System Transformation

OTA seclusion and restraint bulletin board

NASMHPD, and the current seclusion and restraint grantee sites, have made available various summary site experiences detailing activities by these grantees. These reports can be viewed here. If you would like to post a summary of your experiences, please click here to access our online Invitation to Showcase Successful Seclusion and Restraint Reduction Activities. If you have any questions please contact NASMHPD.