Mental Health Waiver Case Study

Mental Health Waiver: WISE The Mental Health Waiver, also known as Working for Integration Support and Empowerment (WISE), is a waiver program that helps individuals with serious mental illness who are currently residing in an institutional setting, or are deemed eligible to reside in an institution, transition back into the community. Previously, adults with serious mental illnesses were being discharged from inpatient treatment settings and placed in nursing homes to meet their needs. This waiver program gives recipients the option to live independently in the community while receiving the medical and psychiatric services they need. The state of Connecticut adopted this policy April 1st, 2009. This policy was enacted after research and the assessment of hundreds of nursing …show more content…
The first section of the paper will discuss and analyze the WISE program through Analysis Method One: Politics of Policymaking, and the second section of the paper will employ Analysis Method Two: Implementation Analysis. The final portion of the paper will include an Implementation Proposition, relaying the benefits and proposals, for the WISE program to potentially become implemented in the state of New York.
Analysis Method One: Politics of Policymaking As a beneficiary of the waiver services, the individual receives a caseworker, often a social worker, to create an individualized person-centered recovery plan. This plan has transitional and rehabilitative goals in which the client, with the help of aides, work to meet. This allows the individual to receive the services they need while the option to have services from residing in a nursing home is waived. Rehabilitative and support services that are available to the client include Community Support Program, Peer Support, Recovery Assistant, Supported Employment, Transitional Case Management, Brief Episode Stabilization, and Personal Emergency Response System.