Assertive Community Treatment (ACT) is a community-based approach to comprehensive assertive team treatment and support for adults with serious mental illness. Services are targeted to a specific group of individuals with serious mental illness, ACT team members share responsibility for the individuals served by the team, the staff to consumer ratio is at least 1:10, the range of ACT treatment and services is comprehensive, interventions are carried out in vivo rather than in clinic or hospital settings, and services are individualized.  ACT uses proactive engagement and provides continuous, rapid, flexible and mobile team based care, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, three hundred and sixty-five days a year. 

The ACT team is the fixed point of responsibility for the development of the consumer's person-centered plan and for supporting consumers in all aspects of community living, including the most independent setting possible. ACT services are part of the required service array and available to the consumer for as long as needed; the expectation is that many consumers will improve to the point of using a less intense service.

Approximately 100 ACT teams are functioning in Michigan. ACT is an evidenced-based practice, researched and in use since the 1970s, it has a positive effect in using fewer hospital services and increasing housing stability and service satisfaction. Mental health consumers, often called peers, frequently work on ACT teams. Teams receive training, support, and encouragement to expect recovery, which helps consumers believe in and move toward recovery.

In fiscal year 2004, 6,487 people received ACT services in the state of Michigan.

Sources: Michigan Medicaid Provider Manual, SAMHSA ACT Implementation Resource Kit, Evaluation Edition, 2003