Criminal Justice / Mental Health Consensus Project

Collaboration Assessment Tool

There is a common denominator among jurisdictions that have launched successful initiatives to address the needs of people with mental illness in the criminal justice system: some meaningful collaboration between at least one component of the criminal justice system and one component of the mental health system precedes the development and implementation of the initiative. The worksheets below are intended to help criminal justice and mental health organizations assess their existing level of collaboration; questions apply to the organizations’ specific collaborative activities and initiatives. With this goal in mind, these worksheets should be completed by both criminal justice and mental health representatives and their answers should represent a consensus.

The worksheets are organized according to four assessment categories:

Knowledge BaseThe process by which agencies involved in the initiative define, identify, track, share, and evaluate information on the target population within and across agencies.

System CollaborationThe process by which different systems work together to define common goals, identify mechanisms to achieve those goals, support their service providers, and evaluate and refine their initiative to ensure positive outcomes.

Service Coordination The process by which service providers from different systems coordinate—and potentially integrate—treatment and services for a shared population in order to achieve system goals.

ResourcesThe process by which agencies involved in the initiative identify and secure resources (e.g. staffing, funding, etc.) that sustain the initiative and advance its goals.

How to navigate the worksheets
To answer questions within each category, identify where your jurisdiction’s collaborative efforts fall along a continuum of four response options. You should answer these questions with the current status of your initiative in mind, not your future plans.

Hold your cursor over linked termsWhen you hold your cursor over linked terms, a box like this will pop up with a definition. for definitions, and the icon in the corner of select response options for example responses. When you hold your cursor over this icon, a box like this will pop up with an example response.

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