Circles of Care, a private, nonprofit community behavior health center that serves Brevard County, has released the results of a comprehensive independent review led by a highly respected committee of volunteers of business, public health, public health and nonprofit leadership in Central Florida.
Committee Request: We recommend peer-based best practices on growth, integrity and safety to assess organizational practices and to continue our key mission for care circles to meet local behavioural health needs.
This initiative is based on existing peer-led knowledge exchange from Circles of Care. There, Circle staff will move to other facilities in Florida to see how it works and extract best practices for consideration by the Circle of Care.
The committee consisted of experienced executives in healthcare, human resources, public safety and non-profit governance, but was chaired by board-certified physicians, Army veterans, and former seventh-term US Congressman David Weldon, who represented Brevard County in the House from 1995 to 2009.
The committee conducted a multi-weekly review of the circle’s internal operations, leadership structure, communication processes, and strategic integrity. As a result, there is a detailed report with numerous organizational strengths and recommendations that reaffirm the organization’s mission, while creating a clear pathway for continuous improvement and evolution.
“These were experts who didn’t have to say ‘yes’, but they care about the circle playing a key role in our community, so they did,” said Stephen Lord, president and CEO of Care. “They bring deep expertise and selfless dedication to the table, and their work points to an even better future for the people we serve.”
The main recommendations for the report are:
• The need to increase patient recreational and emotional engagement activities, such as ART, music, outdoor recreation, and other treatment experiences, to promote patient participation, shorten idle times and promote a more positive treatment environment.
As the peers of the independent committee pointed out, increased opportunities for interaction between patients and staff help to build friendships, strengthen therapeutic relationships and contribute to improving all outcomes.
• The need for a robust community-based coalition to support staffing pipelines for health care, particularly the development of behavioral health workforces.
•The need for statewide behavioral healthcare industry leaders to work together to alleviate employment barriers to employment for people with living experience, including individuals affected by mental health and substance use disorders.
• Opportunities to expand internal and external safety processes, including expanding additional facility screening procedures and training partnerships with local law enforcement agencies.
•An opportunity to coordinate more closely with criminal and mental health court judges to directly link eligible individuals to case management services.
Offering this option will help bridge the important gap between prison release and medical invasion. This is a gap that often leads to recurrence, crisis, or re-arrest.
Importantly, the review found that many of these areas were already addressed in real time. Even as committees are doing their work, the organization is actively implementing changes.
The committee was independently operated without compensation. The work was done with a professionalism, confidentiality and solution-oriented approach.
Committee members expressed deep respect for the care team circles and emphasized the organization’s willingness to invite external reviews as a sign of institutional strength.
“It’s an honor to do this job, and both identify opportunities for improvement and recognize excellence that already exists,” Dr. Weldon said. “The circle of care is important
I am confident in my role in meeting the needs of this community, and in my ability to continue doing so in the future. ”
“Circle of Care is the leading provider of emergency psychiatric care for individuals in crisis in Brevard County. It carries out the most vulnerable residents from pediatric patients.
“For seniors, it’s a responsibility we take very seriously. “Engaging the peer review process illustrates our overall commitment to excellence in care and reflects how we embrace our core mission of caring for Brevard County families and residents.”
The Care Circle is a designated central reception facility in Brevard County for the voluntary and involuntary assessment and stabilization of psychiatric and/or substance use disorders
Patients under the Baker and Marchman Act laws of Florida. Sircles of Care is proud to have a widely respected track record of providing the most comprehensive and high quality behavioral health services across the Brevard community. In addition to hospital-based behavioral health care, the circle offers outpatient mental health and substance use disorder treatment, including on-site and mobile medication-assisted treatment (MAT), detoxification services, and a professional, interdisciplinary team approach to specific conditions.
Circle of Care is a designated central reception facility in Brevard County for the voluntary and involuntary assessment and stabilization of patients with psychiatric and/or substance use disorders under the Baker Act and Marchman Act of Florida.
Sircles of Care is proud to have a widely respected track record of providing the most comprehensive and high quality behavioral health services across the Brevard community. In addition to hospital-based behavioral health care, circles provide outpatient mental health and substance use disorder treatment, including local and mobile medication-assisted treatment (MAT), detoxification services, highly emotionally disturbed children, child welfare cases, and forensic populations, among other specialized, interdisciplinary team approaches to specific groups.
Circle of Care offers short-term and long-term housing, including innovative supportive wrap-around care for individuals who live stable with serious mental illness and have successfully built independent housing.
For more information about Sircles of Care’s Services, visit www.circleofcare.org.
