A/Professor Nicole Lee
Turning Point Alcohol and Drug Centre, Vic
Evaluation of Mental Health Service Provision 2008
A/Professor Nicole Lee is Head of Research at Turning Point Alcohol and Drug Centre and Senior Research Fellow at Monash University. She was awarded her PhD in Psychology in 1999 and has been a registered Psychologist for 17 years.
Dr Lee’s main interest is in treatment research in the substance abuse field focused on improving and supporting alcohol and drug workers in their interventions. Her focus is significantly towards the translation of to practice and to policy. She has conducted a number of randomised trials of new interventions for drug users, going on to translate these into training and professional development activities for workers. She developed the PsyCheck package of mental health intervention in substance use treatment settings, now used across Australia. She has written a number of clinical treatment guidelines including smoking cessation, managing difficult behaviours, dual diagnosis, case management and amphetamine treatment. She is also author of 40 other publications including journal articles, monographs, book chapters and guides.
Dr Lee participates in a number of national and state reference and advisory groups in the drugs and mental health area. She is a director of the Australian Professional Society for Alcohol and Other Drugs (APSAD) Council and serves on the Editorial Board of the Drug and Alcohol Review Journal. She recently retired from the Alcohol and other Drugs Council of Australia (ADCA) Board of Directors and has previously served as National President of the Australian Association for Cognitive and Behaviour Therapy (AACBT), as well as Queensland and Victorian State President.
SUMMARY OF PROJECT:
Examination of the effectiveness of clinical case management for alcohol and drug clients
Alcohol and drug disorders are among the most prevalent mental health problems in our community. Treatment for these problems often requires the use of multiple services to help with issues relating to mental health, housing, finances and legal matters. Significant research has been done on case management of mental health clients but little is known about the effectiveness of case management activities in the area of drug and alcohol treatment.
Dr Nicole Lee from the Turning Point Alcohol and Drug Centre* in Melbourne has been awarded a grant from Australian Rotary Health to examine the implementation of a clinical case management model on clients’ mental health, alcohol and drug use and quality of life outcomes in an alcohol and drug services setting. The trial will compare two case management approaches to treating alcohol and drug problems: brokerage, which connects the client to services and coordinates between different service providers, and clinical case management. It is expected that clinical case management, which involves counselling from the case manager rather than just referrals, will prove to be more effective.
This project has the potential to improve the mental health and wellbeing of some of the most marginalized mental health patients in our community.
*Turning Point Alcohol and Drug Centre strives to promote and maximise the health and wellbeing of individuals and communities living with, and affected by, alcohol and other drug-related harms. The three core areas of Turning Point are the Clinical, Research and Training programs. They enabled Turning Point to develop clinically relevant research questions, test those clinical questions in a service environment and then translate the outcomes of clinical research to clinical practice.