Supporting women with SUD(s), mental illness, and co-occurring substance use who have been incarcerated multiple times due to addiction/mental health.

The Davidson County Sheriff’s Office is submitting this Category 1a
proposal to BJA Grant Opportunity Number O-BJA-2023-171527 (C-BJA-2023-00017-PROD)
to support a collaboration among the Davidson County Sheriff’s Office (DCSO), Metro
Nashville Public Schools, and three nonprofit organizations with an extensive history serving
people with SUD. The collaboration is supported by research partners at New York University.
The allowable activities included in the project are: (1) Education and prevention programs to
connect law enforcement agencies with K-12 students. (2) Evidence-based SUD treatment and
recovery support services for pre- and post-trial populations leaving jail, and (3) Transitional or
recovery housing and peer recovery support services. The project will serve women with
histories of SUD who are housed in DCSO facilities, during their period of incarceration and on
reentry into the community. Metro Nashville has experienced an overdose surge, including fatal
overdoses. A sizable share of fatal overdoses involve fentanyl and a growing number involve
polydrug use (mostly synthetic opioids and methamphetamine). The proposed project will
improve DCSO’s capacity for pre- and post-release treatment and supportive services, including
support with mental health, peer mentorship, transitional housing post-release, and fostering
family connections for incarcerated mothers. This project complements prior BJA COSSAP
funding that targeted fathers with SUD and allows us to expand services for women. The project
has three components: (1) Eligible women in need of housing and support services will be
offered the opportunity to release to CrossBridge’s Restoration House, where they will be
provided with fully equipped apartments, intensive case management, recovery support,
employment assistance, peer mentors, and medication monitoring. (2) To reduce the negative
consequences of parental incarceration and the intergenerational cycle of SUD, eligible mothers
will, with the support of counseling staff, have the opportunity to engage in structured and
unstructured activities during weekly visits with their children. These visits will occur in the
community, under a program called Mother’s Day Out. (3) To address the uptick in overdose
deaths among youth under the age of 18, DCSO will engage community partners to expand our
school-based evidence-based programming on substance use and mental health in zip codes in
Metro Nashville that account for a large share of overdoses. Project deliverables include
documented improvements in DCSO SUD screening processes, documented participation in
programming provided under this award, a manual standardizing the components of the Mother’s
Day Out program, process evaluations of our programming components, and reports on
outcomes of program participants.