Tarrant County Juvenile Services Brief Strategic Family Therapy Project

The Justice and Mental Health Collaboration Program (JMHCP), seeks to increase public safety through innovative cross-system collaboration for individuals with mental illness who come into contact with the criminal or juvenile justice systems. This program is funded through the Mentally Ill Offender Treatment and Crime Reduction Act of 2004 (MIOTCRA) (Public Law 108-414). The program is designed to increase public safety by facilitating collaboration among the criminal justice, juvenile justice, and mental health and substance abuse treatment systems to increase access to services for offenders with mental illness. Activities under this initiative encourage early intervention for 'system-involved' individuals with mental illness; provides new and existing mental health courts with various treatment options; maximizes diversion opportunities for nonviolent offenders with mental illness and co-occurring disorders; promotes training for justice and treatment professionals on criminal justice processes and mental health and substance abuse issues; and facilitates communication, collaboration, and the delivery of support services among justice professionals, treatment and related service providers, and governmental partners.

Tarrant County Juvenile Services will use Justice and Mental Health Collaboration funds to promote public safety by collaborating with juvenile justice entities and mental health and substance abuse treatment services. Specifically, funds will be used to expand the court-based early intervention program known as Deferred Prosecution Probation (DPP). Utilizing the evidence-based intervention of Brief Strategic Family Therapy (BSFT), the goal is to divert 100 youth with mental health needs into community-based treatment. This will be accomplished by implementing the BSFT approach, promoting family integration in treatment, expediting intervention services to youth with mental health needs, and improving linkages to ancillary services. Tarrant County Juvenile Services will also collaborate with Santa Fe Adolescent Services to expand treatment for juvenile first-time offenders in an effort to reduce recidivism.

CA/NCF