Instructor | Dr. Brian Paulson, Ph.D.

Learners will describe the Florida statutes that govern behavioral health services and the CMHP's place within them.

Learners will explain the criteria for involuntary examination under the Baker Act and identify who may initiate an examination.

Learners will describe the examination process, dispositions, patient rights, and the differences between the Baker Act and the Marchman Act.

Learners will describe advocacy within the CMHP role, including the difference between acting with a person and acting on their behalf.

Learners will identify key rights of people receiving mental health and substance use services in Florida and core disability rights protections.

Learners will coach people in self-advocacy and support them through grievances, complaints, and appeals.

Learners will describe the core competencies of interprofessional collaboration and the roles of common behavioral health team members.

Learners will apply structured communication tools to report observations clearly and objectively to licensed clinicians and teams.

Learners will contribute effectively to team meetings, integrated care, and family partnerships while following privacy law and consent requirements.

Learners will identify when plan reviews are required and what events should trigger an earlier review.

Learners will prepare data and the person for reviews using progress summaries, outcome monitoring, and structured feedback.

Learners will apply decision guidelines to continue, revise, or retire objectives and rewrite objectives in SMART form for clinician approval.

Learners will describe the nature of crisis, the crisis services continuum, and the CMHP's role and limits in crisis situations.

Learners will support clinician-developed safety plans and help people build personal wellness and crisis plans in their own words.

Learners will identify early warning signs, crisis preferences, and substance-related risks, including overdose, and connect people to appropriate resources.

Learners will define evidence-based practice as the integration of research evidence, clinical expertise, and the person's characteristics, culture, and preferences.

Learners will evaluate claims about treatments using basic concepts of research design and levels of evidence.

Learners will describe several SAMHSA-recognized evidence-based program models and the CMHP's role within them.

Learners will describe the strengths perspective and the six principles of the Strengths Model and contrast them with deficit-focused approaches.

Learners will conduct a strengths assessment across life domains and map a person's recovery capital.

Learners will use exception, coping, and success-focused questions to elicit strengths from people who struggle to see any.

Learners will describe the spirit and four processes of motivational interviewing and map them onto the service planning conversation.

Learners will practice open questions, affirmations, reflections, and summaries to engage people and strengthen their own reasons for change.

Learners will recognize change talk and sustain talk and respond to ambivalence and discord without arguing.

Learners will describe service coordination, its core functions, and the CMHP's role and scope within it.

Learners will compare major case management models and explain what the evidence suggests about each.

Learners will apply coordination-focused needs assessment, planning, linkage, and monitoring skills that keep the person at the center.

Learners will explain the cognitive model and the behavioral principles that underlie cognitive behavioral approaches.

Learners will help people notice automatic thoughts and common thinking patterns and support clinician-assigned thought records.

Learners will support behavioral activation, relaxation, problem-solving, and social skills practice in everyday settings.

Observe and describe each mental status domain objectively

Distinguish mood from affect and thought process from thought content

Recognize acute confusion, command hallucinations, and other urgent findings

Recognize risk factors, warning signs, and protective factors for suicide and violence

Ask directly about method, means, and access and escalate immediately

Understand Florida's Baker Act, Marchman Act, and crisis services