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. Please be sure to check our Consensus Project website as new publications and resources may be available that are not reflected in this toolkit.

• Law Enforcement
• Courts
• Corrections (including jails, community corrections, and prisons)
• Juvenile Justice/Mental Health
• 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.
• Law Enforcement Responses to People with Mental Illnesses: A Guide to Research-Informed Policy and Practice:Examines studies on law enforcement interactions with people with mental illnesses and translates the findings to help policymakers and practitioners develop safe and effective interventions. Supported by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, it reviews research on the scope and nature of the problem and on a range of law enforcement responses.
• Improving Responses to People with Mental Illnesses: Strategies for Effective Law Enforcement Training: Serves as a practical handbook written for law enforcement personnel and staff at other agencies who are planning a training initiative that will support a CIT, co-response, or other type of specialized law enforcement-based response program, as well as for individuals looking to enhance an existing training initiative.
• 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.

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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.
• Mental Health Courts: A Guide to Research-Informed Policy and Practice: Reviews the design and function of mental health courts, outcomes of mental health court participation, and questions and implications for policy and practice. This guide is intended to assist policymakers and practitioners in assessing the utility of mental health courts.
• Mental Health Courts: A Primer for Policymakers and Practitioners: Provides a general overview of this program model and discusses the emergence of mental health courts, their objectives and procedures, how they differ from drug courts, and a number of other key issues.
• 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.
• A Guide to the Role of Crime Victims in Mental Health Courts: Details how the nontraditional operations of mental health courts contribute to limited victims rights policies and recommends practical solutions for improving them. The guide also includes examples of how some mental health and other specialty courts have successfully addressed this challenge.

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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.

• Improving Outcomes for People with Mental Illnesses under Community Corrections Supervision: A Guide to Research-Informed Policy and Practice: Reviews the body of recent research on community corrections supervision for people with mental illnesses and translates the findings to help officials develop effective interventions. This first-of-its-kind guide helps program planners and policymakers apply research on promising practices to improve outcomes for people with mental illnesses under community corrections supervision.
• Improving Responses to People with Mental Illnesses: The Essential Elements of Specialized Probation Initiatives: Identifies 10 key components found in successful initiatives to improve outcomes for people with mental illnesses under probation supervision. This first-of-its-kind report provides specific recommendations to probation and mental health policymakers and practitioners for effectively responding to this population's complex treatment and service needs while improving public safety and health.
• 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.
• Brief Jail Mental Health Screen: developed by Policy Research Associates can be used as a screening instrument for both men and women. Follow the link to download the Brief Jail Mental Health Screen and click here to read the full report.
• 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/MENTAL HEALTH

Communities around the country have increased the attention they have paid to the needs of youth with mental illnesses who come in contact with the juvenile justice system. As you plan, develop and implement initiatives 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: 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.
• Kids Are Different: How Knowledge of Adolescent Development Theory Can Aid Decision-Making in Court: Provides a training curriculum that applies the findings of adolescent development research and relates that research to practice issues confronted by juvenile court practitioners at the various decision-making stages of the juvenile justice process. Addresses strategies for interviewing juvenile defendants, obtaining adequate mental health evaluations for accused youth, recognizing and treating children with special education needs, and evaluating youth competence.

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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.
• A Guide to the Role of Crime Victims in Mental Health Courts: Details how the nontraditional operations of mental health courts contribute to limited victims rights policies and recommends practical solutions for improving them. The guide also includes examples of how some mental health and other specialty courts have successfully addressed this challenge.
• Responding to People Who Have Been Victimized by Individuals with Mental Illnesses: Outlines steps policymakers, advocates, mental health professionals, and others can take to understand and protect the rights and safety of victims of crimes committed by individuals found "not guilty by reason of insanity" or otherwise court-ordered to receive treatment in a mental health facility.
• 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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