Dana Point Residential Mental Health has a mission to serve clients seeking long-term sobriety and healing from substance use disorder and addiction.  To support long-term positive outcomes, we have designed a virtual continuing care model and it is enabled through a platform called Mindfuli.

Mindfuli’s goal is to assist clients in achieving long-term sobriety and personal wellbeing by involving both the client and care team in the treatment planning at the beginning of the treatment process, while the client is in-treatment, and after they have been discharged from our care.

What is Mindfuli?

Mindfuli is a virtual mental health platform designed to provide a wide range of services to effectively address a client’s substance use disorder and co-occurring issues while also supporting their affected family members. This virtual Continuing Care model was designed to support their journey as part of the client curriculum during their treatment stay and beyond. The client will be onboarding to the platform upon admission to our facilities, be immediately paired with a Care Counselor, and obtain immediate access to this powerful digital peer support model.

Who is the Care Team and what are Care Counselors?

Our Care Team is a team of highly trained peer support staff known as Care Counselors. The Care Team’s goal is to support the client throughout treatment by maintaining the therapeutic alliance and providing unlimited support.

The Care Counselor is the heart and soul of our service. A Care Counselor will be assigned to clients based on their specific needs and preferences. Clients will also have unlimited access to a 24/7 counselor chat feature, social support groups, and a multitude of assigned exercises. On an as-needed basis, the platform also has an option for tiers of continuing care that include sessions with a licensed therapist.

What is the goal of the Mindfuli continuing care model?

The Mindfuli Continuing Care model was developed as a supplemental set of tools to assist them in substance abuse treatment. The model’s design will provide support in their journey towards continued sobriety, enhance their treatment experience while assisting their goals of becoming self‐sufficient, building self-esteem and more positive self-evaluation or well-being, reaching personal and professional goals, re-engaging with family, having more stable social relations, growing as an individual, and connecting with their true purpose.

Data shows us that this type of care can significantly contribute to continued sobriety, increased quality of life, personal well-being, and a decrease in other mental health symptoms among many other factors.

In fact, a 12-month outcome study by Proctor, Wainwright, & Herschman (2017) found that when patients attended continuing care (Aftercare, virtual care) within 7 days of discharging from treatment it improved outcomes as follows:

The Continuing Care model ensures that engagement in continuing treatment, as mentioned in this study, is much more accessible and enjoyable. Part of the Continuing Care model is to engage clients with social support networks that continue to strengthen as engagement in the program continues. Lookatch et al. (2019) found that when persons recovering from substance use disorder felt and/or perceived social support from their friends, it directly increased their readiness and willingness to change. Patients participating in aftercare and continuing care also showed decreased substance use at 3-to-6-month intervals and this data proved continued support-group participation is also directly related with achieving substance use recovery goals, readiness to change, and decreased substance use.

How does the Mindfuli platform work?

The Continuing Care model is delivered in a Care pathway that is individualized based on client needs, demographics, and the strength of the Therapeutic Alliance between client and Care Counselor. When the client is onboarded, they are asked to take the very same assessment that their Care Counselors take as staff.  This allows the platform to appropriately match them with counselors with which they will have the strongest therapeutic alliance. After being paired, the client will engage with one of our pathways that are individualized depending on where the client is on their journey.