In this, our first episode, host Virgil Stucker talked with guest, Chloe Pedalino, LICSW, the program director of the PACT program at McLean Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts.
Chloe is also director of the Collaboration and Community Liaison activities for McLean Hospitals Psychotic Disorders Division. Chloe, a recipient of a McLean Hospital Vision of Excellence Award in 2016, was also awarded a placement in the Boston Psychoanalytic Society and Institute mentorship program in 2015. Chloe is co-founder of the Psychotic Disorders Mentorship Program. In addition to expertise in DBT, she has cutting edge skills in open dialogue treatment techniques and in training staff in mentalization-based treatment.
The McLean Hospital PACT (program for assertive community treatment) is quite new. Launched in October 2018, McLean’s PACT helps clients with severe and persistent mental illnesses, such as bipolar and psychotic disorders, create and maintain lives that are healthy, functional, fulfilling, and as independent as possible.
While PACT teams have been around since the 1970s and are found in a couple dozen states, mostly in public mental health systems, McLean’s is one of just a few in Massachusetts, and the first we know of that is offered within the continuum of care of a hospital system Studies of PACTs have shown that their wraparound supports and ability to intervene quickly when illness worsens helps keep clients out of the hospital (or shortens lengths of stay) and reduces homelessness and incarceration.
Our conversation with Chloe focused on three main talking points:
1. The form and function of a PACT Team
2. The tools, skills, and inspiration Chloe brings to her work as the director of a PACT team
3. And the outcomes of this treatment model