THE ADULT NEEDS AND STRENGTHS ASSESSMENT (ANSA)

WHAT IS ANSA?


The ANSA is an open domain tool that is free for anyone to use. There is a community of people who use the ANSA and share experiences and additional items and supplementary tools.

FOR NEEDS:

a. No evidence
b. Watchful waiting/prevention
c. Action
d. Immediate/Intensive Action

FOR STRENGTHS:

1.Centerpiece strength
2. Strength that you can use in planning
3. Identified-strength-must be built
4. No strength identified

The Adult Needs and Strengths Assessment (ANSA) is a multi-purpose tool developed for adult’s behavioral health services to support decision making, including level of care and service planning, to facilitate quality improvement initiatives, and to allow for the monitoring of outcomes of services. 

The ANSA is currently used in a number of states and Canada in applications hospitals, emergency departments, psychosocial rehabilitation programs, and ACT programs. The ANSA was developed from a communication perspective so as to facilitate the linkage between the assessment process and the design of individualized service plans including the application of evidence-based practices.

The ANSA was developed from a communication perspective so as to facilitate the linkage between the assessment process and the design of individualized service plans including the application of evidence-based practices. The original version, the Severity of Psychiatric Illness (SPI), was created in the 1990’s to study decision-making in psychiatric emergency systems. The ANSA expands on the concepts of the SPI to include a broader description of functioning and include strengths with a recovery focus.

The ANSA is easy to learn and is well liked by recipients, family members, providers and other partners in the services system because it is easy to understand and does not necessarily require scoring in order to be meaningful to an individual and his/her family. The way the ANSA works is that each item suggests different pathways for service planning. There are four levels of each item with anchored definitions; however, these definitions are designed to translate into the following action levels (separate for needs and strengths)

RESEARCH