Mental Health Agency Research Network

The MHARN is a developing statewide network for knowledge sharing and research collaboration between academics, community providers and consumers and family members across the Commonwealth. The MHARN is under the leadership of the UMMS Department of Psychiatry (Carl Fulwiler, M.D., Ph.D., Director). The efforts of the MHARN focus on the need to disseminate evidence-based practices and inform about the latest mental health research, the need to engage academics, community providers, and consumers in a dialogue about research and evaluation, and the need to help our faculty and staff perform clinical research in their clinical settings and develop research partnerships with the community agencies.

The Center for Mental Helath Services Research, (CMHSR), has a long standing relationship with DMH and many providers of services to DMH consumers. This includes relationships with Options Inc., the Massachusetts Clubhouse Coalition, Genesis Club, judicial diversion programs around the Commonwealth, etc. The MHARN is an effort to expand and formalize the partnership between CMHSR, the Department of Mental Health and providers of mental health services across the Commonwealth. It is designed to enhance participation in research and disseminate research findings to Massachusetts mental health agencies. It builds on CMHSR’s established research relationships with providers and takes advantage of CMHSR’s research expertise. The MHARN will work on a statewide basis and contribute to the improvement of services across the Commonwealth.

Goals
The goals of the MHARN are threefold:

· Expand CMHSR’s dissemination of state of the art research on evidence-based practice to DMH agencies and providers of services to people with mental illness statewide. CMHSR and the Harvard Center for Excellence, in collaboration with DMH, will provide this information both electronically and “in person” through seminars and other presentational formats.

· Provide a convening point for problem-solving activities among the state’s service providers. The MHARN will host meetings to focus on topics identified by MHARN members. Agencies that handle the issue well or have innovative approaches to the problem will be asked to lead a problem solving session with CMHSR support. Following the meeting the MHARN will distribute a summary of the findings and conclusions of the meeting. In some cases CMHSR will provide literature review support. Other sessions might lead to research studies.

· Promote participation in research by organizations serving DMH clients. CMHSR will work with providers to conceptualize, develop, and execute studies to answer their research questions.

Structure
The MHARN will have three tiers, a base tier of service providers who will receive information about innovations in services and treatments, a middle group of providers who will participate in survey and other observational research and, at the top, a small group of providers who will participate actively in highly structured intervention studies. Movement of members through the various tiers, or levels of participation will be fluid. The progression of participation may go as follows:

• Base Tier Participation— includes a broad, statewide representation of providers. Individual providers and/or provider agencies may express interest in receiving general research information or information only on a particular topic. As the providers and provider agencies learn more about CMHSR’s work, they may choose to participate in a problem solving session hosted by the MHARN.
• Second Tier Participation—the agency indicates an interest in serving as a research site and/or participating in developing a particular research project but does not have the infrastructure to implement a complex study. Agencies in this tier may participate in surveys and other non-interventional research. Staff members may begin to train as participants in the planning and implementation of the research so as to move to third tier participation
• Third Tier Participation—A small number of sites will actively participate in the planning of future research projects and in the acquisition of funding for those projects.