Images in psychiatry. The Massachusetts Mental Health Center

Development of a Boston Treatment Program for Youth at Clinical High Risk for Psychosis: Center for Early Detection, Assessment, and Response to Risk (CEDAR)

Over the past two decades, increasing attention has been given to the importance of early intervention for psychosis. This article describes the development of the Center for Early Detection, Assessment and Response to Risk (CEDAR), which focuses on early identification and treatment of youth at clinical high risk for psychosis. There are relatively few models in the United States for such programs, and we present our developmental story, focusing mainly on the CEDAR Clinic, as a case study of how such a program can develop. We describe the rationale, infrastructure, and services provided at the CEDAR Clinic, and present some descriptive data from the CEDAR Clinic through 2016. A case example is provided to illustrate treatment at CEDAR. We hope that the cultural history of our program's development is informative for clinicians and policy makers as one model of how to build an early intervention service. We believe that this article is timely in view of the growing momentum in the United States for developing programs for intervening as early as possible for youth at clinical high risk for psychosis.

Prevention and recovery in early psychosis (PREP(®)): building a public-academic partnership program in Massachusetts, United States

Recently, there has been increasing emphasis on early intervention (EI) for psychotic disorders. EI programs in public mental health settings have been established in countries such as Australia, the United Kingdom, and Canada. However, there are relatively few EI programs in the United States (U.S.). Here we describe the conceptual origins and practical development of the PREP program, i.e., Prevention and Recovery in Early Psychosis, as it evolved in a public academic psychiatry setting in Boston, Massachusetts, U.S. PREP developed over a decade through a partnership between the Massachusetts Department of Mental Health and academic institutions within the Harvard Department of Psychiatry. We discuss the evolution, programmatic features, funding mechanisms, staffing, and the role of clinical training in PREP. The key principles in developing the PREP Program include the focus on early, evidence based, person-centered and phase-specific, integrated and continuous, comprehensive care. This program has served as a foundation for the emergence of related services at our institution, including a research clinic treating those at clinical high risk or within the putative "prodromal" period preceding frank psychosis. This account offers one possible blueprint for the development of EI programs despite the lack in the U.S. of a national mandate for EI or prevention-based mental health programs.