7.6 Treatment planning

There is no single, correct intervention or program for people who have concurrent disorders. The treatment plan needs to be customized to address each client's particular needs. Treatment plans should:

• identify issues and problems
• outline short-term and long-term goals
• establish approaches and interventions to meet the goals.

In many cases, treatment includes helping a person with employment, housing, finances, leisure activities and basic daily self-care. The person giving the assessment may recommend your family member see a therapist or that he or she start taking medication. Joining a self-help group is also an important part of treatment for many people. A person may decide he or she simply needs more support during stressful times. The ultimate goal of treatment is for people to decide what a healthy future means for them and to find ways to live a healthy life.

Family involvement

Families often provide the ongoing, day-to-day care, so they should be involved in treatment planning if possible. Families will often have information that should be considered by the treatment team as part of the planning process. Their perspective may be different than that of the client or the treatment team.

The amount of family participation will depend on the client. One barrier to family involvement cited by providers and families is unclear confidentiality policies. A treatment provider cannot share case-specific information with you without your family member's agreement. Treatment providers should ask clients if they agree to family members participating in planning and treatment. However, many providers don't ask, so it's best if you talk to your family member and let the treatment team know what you have agreed to. Have this agreement added to your family member's treatment record. If more than one agency is involved in care, make sure each agency is aware of whether your relative has agreed to share information with you and whether the agency has a copy of that agreement in its files. You may need to start the conversation because each agency may assume that the other has talked to your relative.

Learning about substance use and mental health problems will help you recognize what type of information will be useful to the treatment team. It often helps to organize your questions and concerns into a document. Keep the document short and to the point, and keep the tone neutral. If possible, you and your relative should work together to decide what information to include.

If your relative does not want you involved

Even if your relative hasn't agreed to share treatment information with you, the treatment team can still talk to you about:

• the nature of substance use and mental health problems
• how to respond to disturbing behaviours
• how to get help in an emergency
• how to get help for yourself.

The treatment provider can also listen to your observations. Avoid making treatment recommendations—remember, you are not the attending physician or psychiatrist!—but allow the treatment team to draw conclusions from the information you present.

Click the link below to print/view the exercise in Figure 7-1:

• Figure 7-1: Sample family information document (PDF only)

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