Illness Management and Recovery / IMR-A17-4
Navigating Services — Session activity
Facilitate a structured practice of navigating services with preparation, reflection, and an agreed closing.
30 minutes · Session guide · Mental health professionals
Fictional example: Casey is unsure which service handles a referral.
Use within your training and assessment of readiness. Knowing roles and routes can reduce the burden of seeking help.
0–5 min | Agree on purpose and fit
Explain the educational scope. Ask what would be useful, check readiness and access needs, and establish choices to observe, adapt, or pass. Use an ordinary example; do not solicit trauma narratives.
5–10 min | Orient with an example
Knowing roles and routes can reduce the burden of seeking help. Fictional example: Casey is unsure which service handles a referral. Ask what is observed and what remains uncertain.
10–20 min | Practice and compare
Create a map of providers, peer services, scheduling contacts, and questions about eligibility or cost. Offer quiet individual work, a supported conversation, or an observing role. Compare two possible responses without evaluating people as right or wrong.
20–25 min | Reflect on meaning
Who can clarify the next step without making you tell the whole story again? Ask what fit, what did not fit, and how culture, power, disability access, or external conditions affect the options.
25–30 min | Integrate and close
Invite one optional next step or support request. Orient to the current setting, allow an unfinished question to remain unfinished, and agree how to revisit it. End early or adapt if activation increases.
Adaptations
For a group, use fiction and no compulsory round-robin disclosure. For remote use, allow off-camera reflection and private notes. For brief use, keep one example and one question while retaining opening and closing choices.
Prompts for this resource
- What outcome would make this practice useful?
- Who can clarify the next step without making you tell the whole story again?
- What adaptation or follow-up is needed?
Conceptual background
Illness Management and Recovery Evidence-Based Practices KIT — SAMHSA
Background on the approach only. Original exercises and wording are by More Than Therapy with AI assistance; the source does not validate or endorse these materials.