GAINS Center convenes national conference on mental health in the criminal justice system
On May 12-14, the National GAINS Center for People with Co-Occurring Disorders in the Justice System convened a diverse group of more than 600 corrections, law enforcement, court officials, and mental health practitioners and consumers at its third biennial national conference in Las Vegas, NV. The conferences theme was From Science to Services: Emerging Best Practices for People in Contact with the Justice System.
Download the conference brochure here.
In the opening plenary session, keynote speaker A. Kathryn Power, Director of the Center for Mental Health Services, a division of the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), discussed the implementation of the Presidents New Freedom Commission on Mental Health for people involved with the justice system. Other keynote speakers included:
- Dr. Andrea G. Barthwell, Deputy Director for Demand Reduction at the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy;
- Dr. Lisa Najavits, Director of the Trauma Research Program at McLean Hospital (MA);
- Dr. Roger Fallot, Co-Director of Community Connections (Washington, DC).
Dr. Barthwell led the second plenary session, "The Marriage of Public Health & Safety: A Balanced Approach to Our National Drug Control Strategy." Dr. Najavits and Dr. Fallot co-led the final plenary session, which was titled "Why Trauma? Implications for the Correctional Setting."
The GAINS Center and the Criminal Justice/ Mental Health Consensus Project are working together to promote organizational and systems change at the national, state, and local levels. The TAPA Center for Jail Diversion, a branch of the National GAINS Center, provides technical assistance for SAMHSA's Targeted Capacity Expansion (TCE) Grants for Jail Diversion Programs; this program is closely coordinated with the Bureau of Justice Assistance's Mental Health Courts Program, for which the Consensus Project coordinates technical assistance.
As part of this collaboration, the TAPA Center and the Consensus Project have identified several shared objectives, beyond the coordination of technical assistance to the two grant programs. These objectives - promoting judicial leadership, understanding fiscal implications of the involvement of people with mental illness in the justice system, and ensuring access to federal benefits upon reentry - are described here.
