Topic: Behavioral Health

Last Updated September 20, 2024

Background & Approach

Natrona County is the second most populous county in Wyoming and has actively strengthened cross-system collaboration and momentum created before and during their 2021 Sequential Intercept Model (SIM) Mapping Workshop. Individuals with lived experience now provide support groups, and training within the jail and the county has expanded the number of case managers working on their jail reentry program through the Natrona Collective Health Trust. As part of the IMPACT Network, they focus on early intervention, law enforcement responses, and initial detention and court hearings. They have developed a crisis response continuum, a local navigation center for resource connection, and a housing task force. Natrona leadership is also building grant-writing capacity and partnering with the Wyoming Survey & Analysis Center to perform cost analysis around behavioral health services and incarceration.

Last Updated September 9, 2024

Background & Approach

Together with neighboring Douglas County, Region 6 Behavioral Healthcare, and Omaha Police Department, Sarpy County is part of a Criminal Justice-Mental Health Information Sharing Initiative that works to build a data sharing platform to improve the outcome for individuals in a mental crisis. The platform connects people to care, in an effort to reduce the number of individuals with mental illness in their local jails. Sarpy County has been recognized as a Stepping Up Innovator County due to its strong implementation of jail data collection and sharing through a jail population review team. They have also built ongoing cross-system collaboration through an active Criminal Justice Coordinating Committee. At the re-entry stage, the jail’s specialized transition planning team identifies individuals with serious mental illness and high needs, then connects them to case management and a reentry plan prior to release to the community. In 2021, Sarpy County established the state’s first mental health Wellness Court. Through the IMPACT Network, Sarpy County focuses heavily on initial detention and court hearings, as well as pretrial incarceration, implementing pretrial risk assessment and release practices for individuals with mental health needs. Sarpy County and Region 6 Behavioral Healthcare are developing a crisis stabilization program to build a more robust set of diversion options.

Last Updated September 9, 2024

Background & Approach

Issaquah is a city in King County about 17 miles east of Seattle. Prior to joining the IMPACT Network, Issaquah focused primarily on early intervention community services, law enforcement responses, initial detention and court hearings, and pretrial jail and court-based diversion programs. The city established a Behavioral Health and Homeless Outreach Program within the Human Services Division, in collaboration with the Issaquah Police Department, as well as a Homeless Outreach Dashboard. Issaquah’s problem-solving Community Court supports individuals with low-level charges and social service or behavioral health needs. Through the IMPACT Network, Issaquah prioritizes streamlining cross-system communication and coordination between multiple programs and departments, including human services, law enforcement, courts, corrections, fire, parks, and eventually, hospitals and crisis centers. Human Services meets monthly with various organizations, then quarterly as a larger group to share progress. They are also building the Familiar Faces Collaborative to collect data and better meet the needs of people with frequent jail contact.

Last Updated September 9, 2024

Background & Approach

Together with neighboring Sarpy County and Region 6 Behavioral Healthcare, Douglas County is part of a Criminal Justice-Mental Health Information Sharing Initiative to build data-driven strategies to reduce the number of people with mental illness in their local jails. Douglas County has been recognized as a Stepping Up Innovator County due to its robust implementation of validated jail screening for behavioral health, brain injury, and trauma, as well as data utilization and sharing. They have also built ongoing cross-system collaboration through a Familiar Faces Project, meeting the needs of individuals with serious mental illness and frequent jail contact. Through the IMPACT Network, Douglas County focuses on initial detention and court hearings, implementing the Public Safety Assessment (PSA) and a pretrial release program targeted to specific populations with frequent contact and mental health needs. They also plan to partner with Sarpy County to develop a crisis stabilization program, providing a more robust continuum of diversion options.

Last Updated September 16, 2024

Background & Approach

Doña Ana County’s Competency Diversion Pilot Project supports individuals with frequent contact with the criminal justice system who may have competence and/or mental illness needs. Individuals meet with a forensic navigator for a warm handoff to services (e.g., housing, transportation, medications for opioid use disorder, medical, behavioral health, assisted outpatient treatment) within 72 hours. The detention center’s medication-assisted treatment (MAT) program provides induction, maintenance dosing, withdrawal management, and referral to an MAT provider upon release to the community. The county’s Reach, Intervene, Support, and Engage (RISE) program reduces reincarceration and homelessness by creating jail reentry plans and linking to community-based services.

In 2023, Doña Ana County Health and Human Services equipped cross-agency staff to provide trauma-informed response training, with support from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA).They conducted subsequent training with mental health and substance use disorder treatment providers, detention center cadets, crisis triage center personnel, and the fire department crisis response mobile unit team. Doña Ana County has also implemented several collaborative initiatives, including a taskforce to map racial and ethnic inequities and to gather data on justice-involved individuals, New Mexico’s first Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinic at Families & Youth Innovations Plus, and the LC3 Behavioral Health Collaborative of over 180 representatives across 70 cross-sector agencies, which works toward building an ideal behavioral health service system.