Purpose: Consumer-run mental health services, increasingly popular as an adjunct or alternative to professionally operated services, have been recognized as “an important new direction in community care”. Unlike self-help programs, consumer-run services are formally organized and funded for the purposes of providing services. Policy and programmatic initiatives at state and federal levels have supported consumer involvement in service planning and provision, many recommending the mandatory incorporation of consumer-run services in mental health systems. The expansion of consumer-run services is outpacing research on such services. There is currently a critical need for more information about the operations, services, and subtypes of consumer-centered programs. This study sought to describe how consumer-centered mental health drop-ins serve their target populations in terms of the program structure, the types of services and activities provided, the amount of financial and personnel resources used and the ways these resources vary.

Methods: The NIMH-funded Assessing Consumer-Centered Services (ACCS) Project surveyed directors, staff and 915 mental health consumers attending drop-ins in 31 locations across Michigan. The field research team also collected qualitative data, based on structured observations taken over two-day visits to each site, as well as documents, including mission statements, attendance figures, annual budgets, and funding information. Regression was used to analyze predictors of services, number of persons regularly served, as well as the operating costs per person per day.

Results: These programs have small budgets and very modest costs per person served. Although drop-ins are relatively inexpensive to run, program financing and funding is one of the biggest challenges the respondents reported facing. Centers in more heavily populated urban areas tend to have larger budgets and staffs, and are able to serve more persons daily. Counties with higher per capita income tend to allocate more money and resources to their centers' operating budgets.

Implications: This study confirms that drop-in centers provide a wide range of services and activities to mental health consumers through a variety of settings and locations. Given their funding and staffing levels, they are quite efficiently serving a large number of people. Implications for policy, programming and practice will be discussed.