Assertive Community Treatment (ACT)

An Assertive Community Treatment (ACT) team consists of a community-based group of medical, behavioral health, and rehabilitation professionals who use a team approach to meet the needs of an adult client with severe and persistent mental illness. A client who is appropriate for ACT does not benefit from receiving services across multiple, disconnected providers, and may become at greater risk of hospitalization, homelessness, substance use, victimization, and incarceration. An ACT team provides person-centered services addressing the breadth of a client’s needs, helping him or her achieve their personal goals. Thus, a fundamental charge of ACT is to be the first-line (and generally sole provider) of all the services that an ACT client needs. Being the single point of responsibility necessitates a higher frequency and intensity of community-based contacts, and a very low client-to-staff ratio. Services are flexible; teams offer varying levels of care for all beneficiaries, and appropriately adjust service levels given an individual client’s changing needs over time.

An ACT team assists a client in advancing toward personal goals with a focus on enhancing community integration and regaining valued roles (example, worker, daughter, resident, spouse, tenant, or friend). Because an ACT team often works with beneficiaries who may passively or actively resist services, an ACT team is expected to thoughtfully carry out planned assertive engagement techniques including rapport-building strategies, facilitating meeting basic needs, and motivational interviewing techniques. These techniques are used to identify and focus on the client’s life goals and what he or she is motivated to change. Likewise, it is the team’s responsibility to monitor the client’s mental status and provide needed supports in a manner consistent with the client’s level of need and functioning. The ACT team delivers all services according to a recovery-based philosophy of care. The team promotes self-determination, respects the client as an individual in his or her own right, and engages peers in promoting hope that the client can recover from mental illness and regain meaningful roles and relationships in the community

We are proud to offer ​ACT in the following counties in North Carolina:

Gaston
Mecklenburg
Union