Helping community mental health work: a model for the professional role of liaison

Community mental health centers were created to provide mental health services within the community. However, these centers have had difficulty delivering community-based services and have, all too often, become isolated from the communities they serve. A model for the role of professional liaison is presented. The liaison model is seen as providing a solution to service delivery problems by acting as an adjunctive agency providing broadly based referral and linking services between agencies in the community. Essential features of the liaison role include an ecological perspective, indirect service delivery, an emphasis on liaison role rather than technique, and the inappropriateness of advocacy.