Written by National Director, Substance Use Policy and Programs, Alexandra Perry.
Early intervention is often discussed as a timing issue - act sooner, and outcomes will improve.
Across mental health, substance use, and workplace disability systems, this idea has shaped policy, program design, and expectations. Yet in practice, earlier action alone does not always lead to clearer pathways or better results.
What we see repeatedly in complex cases is not delayed identification, but fragmented support - individuals engaging with multiple professionals, services, and systems that are not meaningfully connected. In these environments, “early intervention” can become a retrospective explanation rather than a practical solution.
In this piece, Alexandra Perry, National Director of Substance Use Policy and Programs, explores a different lens on early intervention - one that shifts the focus from speed to alignment, from isolated action to collaboration, and from managing complexity to meeting it more intentionally. Her reflections speak directly to the realities faced by employers, insurers, clinicians, and legal professionals navigating early-stage mental health and substance use concerns.
Early intervention is often framed as the solution. If we intervened sooner, things wouldn’t get so complex. If people got help earlier, outcomes would be better. If we acted earlier, systems would be so strained.
And there is truth in all of that. But over time, I have found myself reflecting on a different question, not whether early intervention matters but what we really mean when we say it.
In many systems I work, early intervention has quietly become a stand in for something else. It’s sometimes used to explain complexity and frustrations after the fact i.e. this wouldn’t be so hard if we had intervened earlier. Or as a kind of hope that timing alone could soften the realities of systems that are already stretched, disconnected, and difficult to navigate.
What I have seen, especially in substance use and mental health work, is that people often aren’t identified late, they are supported in isolation. That’s the problem.
Which makes me wonder whether early intervention is really about being earlier at all. Maybe it’s about realizing as care providers that we can’t do this alone. Because in practice, early intervention often looks like a moment when someone, an employee, a family member, a clinician, a manager, names that something isn’t working. That moment usually doesn’t simply things. It usually makes them more complex. Not because the problem suddenly grew, but because now it’s visible.
And once something is visible, it asks more of us:
- Who else needs to be involved?
- What perspectives am I missing?
- How do treatment, work, recovery, safety, and dignity connect here?
- How do we move forward together instead of in parallel?
So, what if early intervention isn’t about preventing complexity but about meeting it differently?
What if it’s less about speed and more about alignment? Less about getting someone help sooner and more about bringing the right people together sooner. Less about fixing the individual problem and more about acknowledging a shared responsibility?
From this perspective, early intervention becomes a shift in approach:
So, when we want early intervention, maybe what we are really saying is:
Maybe that’s what we have been circling around all along. Not just earlier action but earlier connection, so coordination is easier and fewer assumptions have already taken hold.
Reframing early intervention as earlier connection rather than earlier action invites a more sustainable approach to complex cases. When the right perspectives are engaged at the right time - clinical, workplace, recovery, safety, and functional = coordination improves, assumptions decrease, and outcomes become more defensible and humane.
At SOMA Medical Assessments, we support early-stage and evolving claims through objective, evidence-based medical assessments that prioritize clarity, collaboration, and function. Our multidisciplinary approach is designed to bring the right expertise together early, helping stakeholders move forward with confidence rather than working in parallel.
To learn more about SOMA’s early-claim and complex case assessment services, or to discuss an upcoming referral, connect with our team today.
We welcome collaboration with insurers, employers, legal professionals, and care providers seeking clearer pathways and better-aligned outcomes.