Behavioral Health – Page 2

Document Category: Behavioral Health

Connections to Behavioral Health and Support Services through Reentry

During the reentry process, people work across various sectors to offer support to people who are being released from incarceration by providing connections to care for behavioral health, housing, transportation, and other supportive services. While there are challenges providing connections to care, there are also some success stories that Second Chance Act grantees can offer insight on. This webinar features two grantees who have utilized innovative ways to provide post-release connections to care for people who are returning to various communities. Video Run Time: 1 hr., 12 mins

Availability of best practices for opioid use disorder in jails and related training and resource needs: findings from a national interview study of jails in heavily impacted counties in the U.S.

Jails are optimal settings in which to screen individuals for opioid use disorders (OUD) and provide needed services, especially medications for OUD (MOUD). This study sought to assess the availability of OUD “best practices” in jails located in counties heavily impacted by opioid overdose in the U.S. and their related training and resource needs.

Addressing Trauma in Women’s Prisons

The number of incarcerated women increased by more than 750% from 1980 through 2017, with women of color being disproportionately incarcerated at 1.3 (for Hispanic women) to 2 (for Black women) times the rate of white women in 2017. Incarcerated women are more likely to experience a range of violence and other victimizations, as well as other traumatic experiences, prior to being incarcerated. All play a major role in their pathways to involvement with the criminal justice system. Furthermore, incarcerated women are more likely to experience victimization while incarcerated.

Connecting People Who Have Serious Mental Illnesses to Care: Tele-health and Other Strategies

As telehealth expands, communities across the country are looking for information on how best to facilitate connections to care for people with serious mental illnesses being discharged from jail. This webinar hosted by the Stepping Up partners focuses on increasing connections to care in a changing world, featuring tips and strategies directly from counties.

Crisis Services: Meeting Needs, Saving Lives

In 2017, the National Association of State Mental Health Program Directors (NASMHPD) and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) partnered in advocating for policy makers to consider what it would take to look “Beyond Beds” in state hospitals as a single solution to all the challenges and instead develop a path toward a robust continuum of accessible, effective psychiatric care. Now, three years later, NASMHPD and SAMHSA highlight the first point of entry into that continuum of care- to prevent and manage crises in a way that offers an immediately accessible, interconnected, effective and just continuum of crisis behavioral health services. By enhancing crisis response, community needs can be met, and lives can be saved with services that reduce suicides and opioid-related deaths, divert individuals from incarceration and unnecessary hospitalization and accurately assess and stabilize and refer individuals with mental health, substance use and other behavioral health challenges. This paper, Crisis Services: Meeting Needs, Saving Lives, furthers the Beyond Beds strategy by describing this vision. By knitting together several bodies of work on crisis services, it sets the stage for the next iteration of a national dialogue for developing and expanding that much needed continuum of quality mental health and substance use care for all who need it, when they need it.

National Guidelines for Behavioral Health Crisis Care, Best Practice Toolkit

The National Guidelines for Crisis Care – A Best Practice Toolkit advances national guidelines in crisis care within a toolkit that supports program design, development, implementation and continuous quality improvement efforts. Itis intended to help mental health authorities, agency administrators, service providers, state and local leaders think through and develop the structure of crisis systems that meet community needs.

Sufrin Speaks on Reproductive Health Care for Incarcerated Women

Currently, there are no mandatory standards of care for pregnant women in U.S. prisons and jails, and many incarcerated women receive inadequate obstetric care. These facts prompted Sufrin to study pregnancy outcomes in U.S. prisons through funding she received from NIH’s Building Interdisciplinary Research Careers in Women’s Health Program.

Principles of Community-based Behavioral Health Services for Justice-involved Individuals: A Research-based Guide A bridge to the possible

This document is intended to assist community-based behavioral health providers in their clinical and case management practice with people with mental and substance use disorders who are currently involved with or have a history of involvement in the adult criminal justice system. The focus of this document is on services provided in the community rather than in institutional settings (i.e., jail, prison, or hospital). The information provided is intended to be used in practice, and is therefore appropriate for any staff providing direct services in community settings. However, to practice these principles, organizations may need to reconsider staff training, evidence-based practices, and other programmatic elements to ensure that staff providing direct services have the information, policy support, and resources needed. This document is also intended for agency leaders and program developers who are responsible for shaping how their organizations deliver community-based services. The Principles provide a foundation for realizing a quality, community-based behavioral health treatment system that is responsive to all individuals with mental and substance use disorders and skilled in serving those with histories of justice involvement.

Jail-Based Medication-Assisted Treatment: Promising Practices, Guidelines, and Resources for the Field

Jails are on the front lines of this epidemic, and they also are in a unique position to initiate treatment in a controlled, safe environment. Pharmacotherapy—i.e., medication-assisted treatment—is a cornerstone of best practice for recovery from substance abuse. Treatment using MAT, particularly when coupled with evidence-based behavioral therapy, improves medical and mental health outcomes and reduces relapses and recidivism.

U.S. Prisons and Offenders with Mental Illness: XV. LEGAL REQUIREMENTS

Outline of legal requirements of health care in the US penal system, including some court cases.