The California Institute for Mental Health (CiMH) is a non-profit public interest corporation established in 1993 for the purpose of promoting excellence in mental health services in California through training, technical assistance, research, evaluation and policy development. CiMH provides such assistance to the State, county and city publicly funded mental health authorities, and contracts nationally for demonstration, evaluation, and research projects. CiMH provides training and technical assistance, in particular, in the planning and implementation of the Mental Health Services Act (MHSA). CiMH operates under the leadership of its Board of Directors, comprised of county mental health directors, consumers, family members, private service providers and other public interest stakeholders. Integral to the work of CiMH is the Center for Multicultural Development, which promotes cultural competence of behavioral health systems and within all aspects of policy development, research, evaluation, training and technical assistance.

CiMH expertise is evidenced in the development of models for supporting the implementation of evidence-based practices, including the Community Development Teams; leadership in community learning collaboratives to assist counties in implementing a Plan-Do-Act-Study process for continuous quality improvement; provision of training and technical assistance to counties and agencies in implementing and sustaining AB 2034 programs; and in the development of distance learning courses for social work students and web casts to accommodate geographically diverse regions.

CiMH produced California’s seminal work on consumer employment, “The Successful Employment of Consumers in the Public Mental Health Workforce” by Laura Mancuso, MS, CRC, and has provided trainings, web casts and web based resources on client and family member employment since 2004. CiMH is the contracting agency assuming administrative and fiscal responsibility for overall coordination of Working Well Together and its training and technical assistance center: WWT TAC.