Assertive community treatment: A critical update

Abstract

Assertive Community Treatment (ACT) has been identified in the United States as one of only six evidence-based practices for the severely mentally ill by federal, private foundation, and academic mental health experts and is being rapidhy implemented throughout the world. This article reexamines the research of the inventors of ACT (tbe Madison Wisconsin ACT group) regarding two of their claims. First, that ACT reduces homelessness, and second, that it also reduces penal stays, outcomes which have been key empirical claims for the National Alliance of the Mentally Ill's proactive and very successful public relations campaign to institutionalize ACT across the US, The Madison Wisconsin ACT group makes these assertions in the
longest study (at least 14-years) ever done on this treatment model. The analysis concludes that there is no ACT specific clinical effect in these domains. The implications of these findings are also discussed.