Building a National Standard
for Community Integration
A collaborative alliance supporting programs that help individuals with serious mental illness live full, connected, and meaningful lives.
Building Visibility, Sharing Best Practices, Advocating for Change
Individuals with serious mental illness deserve more than stability — they deserve the opportunity to thrive. Despite decades of innovation, therapeutic community integration programs remain underrecognized and underresourced. CIPA was created to build visibility, share best practices, and advocate for a future where high-quality, community-based psychiatric care is the standard.
We exist to support individuals with serious mental illness in thriving socially, educationally, professionally, and recreationally. Our mission is to exemplify high standards for therapeutic community integration programs and to create a space where this work is recognized, celebrated, and grown. We envision a future where fewer people are trapped in cycles of hospitalization or isolation — because community integration has become a real, sustainable path to recovery.
To support individuals with serious mental illness through community integration programs, helping them thrive socially, educationally and recreationally.
Our mission is to exemplify high standards for therapeutic community integration programs helping those with serious mental illness thrive in social, educational, professional, and recreational aspects of their communities.
Our vision is to reduce psychiatric hospital stays and the disconnectedness that comes from institutionalization. By ensuring that the benefits of community integration programs are widely understood, the model can help vast numbers of people with mental illness to sustain recovery and positively contribute to the workforce and their community while enhancing personal agency and independence. We hold the belief that, with the right support, those with serious mental illness can thrive in the least restrictive environment possible.
70%
Reduction in
Re-hospitalization
Programs emphasizing community integration have been shown to reduce psychiatric re-hospitalization rates by up to 70%, offering individuals a real path toward sustainable recovery (Stein & Test, 1980).
50+
Years in Practice
Community integration has been an evidence-based model of care since the early 1970s, when the first Program for Assertive Community Treatment (PACT) was launched to move treatment out of hospitals and into the community (Marx, Stein & Test, 1972).
Join CIPA and Shape the Future of Community Integration
Be part of a growing movement to define excellence in community integration and unlock exclusive benefits for your program.
Continuing Education Events
Earn CEs through practical, skill-focused trainings.
Community Conversations
Small, high-impact gatherings with peers nationwide.
Networking Opportunities
Build meaningful connections across the field.
Member Directory
Discover and connect with peer programs directly.