This feature provides resources that you may find useful as you plan, implement, and/or expand your Justice and Mental Health Collaboration Program. The resources are organized into five sections; click the links to jump to a particular section.

• Law Enforcement
• Courts
• Corrections (including jails, community corrections, and prisons)
• Juvenile Justice
• Mental Health Advocates
• Crime Victims

LAW ENFORCEMENT
Without adequate training and access to community-based mental health resources, law enforcement officers face tremendous obstacles in responding to people with mental illnesses. This section identifies resources for local law enforcement agencies considering applying for a grant.

• Improving Responses to People with Mental Illnesses: The Essential Elements of a Specialized Law Enforcement-Based Program: Articulates 10 essential elements for specialized law enforcement-based response programs in interacting with people with mental illnesses and provides a common framework for program design and implementation that will promote positive outcomes while being sensitive to every jurisdiction's distinct needs and resources.


• A GAINS Center Guide for Implementing Police-Based Diversion Programs for People with Mental Illness: Summarizes what law enforcement agencies are doing across the country to improve their responses to people with mental illness and explores how these agencies have overcome barriers to create and maintain effective programs by collaborating with the mental health community.


• Law Enforcement/Mental Health Partnership Program: Describes a Consensus Project national initiative to provide resources for law enforcement leaders and their community partners to develop and enhance law enforcement/mental health programs. (Products are currently in development).


• Consensus Project Report Recommendations: Offers detailed recommendations, endorsed by leaders representing law enforcement and mental health systems across the country, to help policymakers and practitioners improve outcomes of law enforcement encounters with people with mental illness.


• Navigating the Mental Health Maze: A Guide for Court Practitioners: Provides a crash course for any and all criminal justice professionals whose understanding of mental illness and the mental health system may be limited.


• Online Program Profiles of Specialized Law Enforcement-Based Responses:Allows users to search law enforcement-based response programs in other communities across the country, and provides contact information for representatives of these programs. the country, and post questions directly to representatives of these programs.

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COURTS
People with mental illness appear repeatedly before judges and cycle in and out of jail for low-level crimes which are often the result of untreated mental illness. This section identifies resources for people who are considering applying for a grant to support a mental health court or other court-based initiative targeting defendants with a mental illness.

• Essential Elements of a Mental Health Court: Outlines 10 elements essential to mental health court design and implementation and provides background on why each element is important and how courts can adhere to it. (Product currently in draft form).


• A Guide to Mental Health Court Design and Implementation: Explains critical issues such as determining whether to establish a mental health court, defining the target population, ensuring confidentiality, sustaining the court, and other key considerations.


• A Guide to Collecting Mental Health Court Outcome Data: Describes practical strategies for collecting data and evaluating the effectiveness of mental health courts. Written for mental health court practitioners and policymakers who want to measure the impact of court-based programs.


• Navigating the Mental Health Maze: A Guide for Court Practitioners: Provides a crash course for criminal justice professionals whose understanding of mental illness and the mental health system may be limited.


• Judges' Guide to Mental Health Jargon: A tabbed, quick reference guide to the mental health terms most often encountered in criminal justice settings; developed as part of the Judges' Leadership Initiative, which is coordinated by the Justice Center and National GAINS Center.


• A Judges' Primer on Mental Illness, Addictive Disorders, Co-occurring Disorders, and Integrated Treatment: A one-page reference, written for judges, on mental illness, addictive disorders, co-occurring disorders, and integrated treatment.


• Bureau of Justice Assistance Mental Health Court Learning Sites: Provide a peer support network for local and state officials interested in planning a new--or improving upon an existing--mental health court.


• Online Program Profiles of Mental Health Courts and Other Court-Based Programs: Allows users to search court-based programs in other communities across the country, and provides contact information for representatives of these programs.

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CORRECTIONS-BASED PROGRAMS
The number of people with mental illness who are in prison or jail, or under probation or parole supervision, has increased dramatically in recent years. This section identifies resources for people who are considering applying for a grant to support an initiative targeting people with mental illness upon their admission to jail or prison, while they are incarcerated, and after they are released to the community to the supervision of probation and/or parole.

• Corrections/Mental Health Case Studies: Offers detailed and frank discussion of the successes and setbacks that corrections and mental health leaders in Kansas and Orange County, Florida faced as they worked together to improve the response to people with mental illnesses transitioning from jail or prison to the community.


• Collaboration Assessment Tool: Enables leaders in corrections or mental health organizations to assess their current level of collaboration and chart a course for improving collaboration in four categories: knowledge base, systems, services, and resources.


• Consensus Project Report Recommendations: Offers detailed recommendations, endorsed by leaders representing jail, prison, community correction, and mental health systems across the country, to help policymakers and practitioners improve corrections-based responses to people with mental illness.


• Re-Entry Policy Council Report Recommendations: Offers detailed recommendations for improving the likelihood of successful re-entry among adults with mental illness released from prison and jail.


• Navigating the Mental Health Maze: A Guide for Court Practitioners: Provides a crash course for any and all criminal justice professionals whose understanding of mental illness and the mental health system may be limited.


• SSI/SSA and Medicaid: Provides background, relevant research, and case studies on promptly connecting people released from prison and jail, including those with mental illness, with Medicaid and other federal benefits.


• Online Program Profiles of Corrections/Mental Health Programs: Allows users to search corrections/mental health programs and provides contact information for representatives of these programs.

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JUVENILE JUSTICE
Communities around the county have increased the attention they have paid to the needs of youth who are mentally ill who come in contact with the Juvenile Justice System. As you plan, develop and implement changes in your community, you may find it helpful to consult some of the resources listed below.

• Blueprint for Change: A Comprehensive Model for the Identification and Treatment of Youth with Mental Health Needs in Contact with the Juvenile Justice System provides a practical framework for juvenile justice and mental health systems to use when developing policies and programs aimed at improving mental health services for youth in the juvenile justice system.


• Online Resource Guide of the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention for practitioners that provides users with an overview of the various instruments that can be used to screen and assess youth with mental health and substance use disorders at various stages of the juvenile justice process.


• National Youth Screening Assistance Project is a juvenile justice and mental health technical assistance center that provides assistance to juvenile justice programs nationwide in their implementation of mental health screening and assessment, especially with the Massachusetts Youth Screening Instrument-Second Version (MAYSI-2).


• Online Resource Kit of the National Center for Mental Health and Juvenile Justice: for practitioners who want to improve services for youth with mental health and co-occurring substance use disorders involved with the juvenile justice system.


• A Guide to Juvenile Mental Health Courts National Center for Mental Health and Juvenile Justice Research and Program Brief published to improve policies and practices for youth with mental health disorders in contact with the juvenile justice system.


• Program Profiles of the National Center for Mental Health and Juvenile Justice on Juvenile Mental Health Courts including program descriptions, processes and procedures.


• The National Council on Mental Health and Juvenile Justice web site contains a variety of other resources related to mental health and juvenile justice that would be helpful as well, including online trainings and curriculum, links to key organizations, and a range of publication.

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MENTAL HEALTH ADVOCATES
In communities across the country, mental health advocates have been a driving force for change in improving responses to people with mental illness involved in the criminal justice system. But while advocates in these communities may be familiar with how the lives of individuals with mental illness in the criminal justice systems can be impacted, they may be less familiar with how to engage potential partners in these systems. The resource in this section provides strategies for advocates to reach out to representatives from criminal justice / mental health systems who may be applying for grants.

• The Advocacy Handbook: Recommends strategies to mental health advocates who want to improve outcomes for people with mental illness involved in the criminal justice system and are seeking to engage and focus policymakers and leaders in the criminal justice system.

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CRIME VICTIMS
Women with serious mental illness, such as schizophrenia, bi-polar disorder, or serious depression, are vulnerable to domestic violence, sexual assault, and other forms of criminal victimization. Yet frequently, these women fail to get the treatment, services, support, and protection they need. Limited awareness about the link between mental illness and victimization and insufficient coordination across victim and mental health services jeopardizes the mental health of these women and places them at higher risk of future victimization. The resources in this section provide information pertaining to crime victims that grant applicants may want to keep in mind as they plan, implement, or expand collaborative initiatives between criminal justice and mental health systems.

• Violence Against Women with Mental Illness Issue Brief: Reviews existing literature on mental illness and victimization; provides information on relevant mental health or victim service programs and resources; and recommends research, methods of developing policy and programs, and types of training and education to improve services for this population.


• VictimLaw: website run by the National Center for Victims of Crime with support from the Office for Victims of Crime, U.S. Department of Justice, contains overview information of standard victim rights outlined in state law. The website also has a searchable database of state statutes pertaining to victims.

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