JPORT: Off the Beaten Path

The Justice and Mental Health Collaboration Program (JMHCP) seeks to increase public safety through an innovative, cross-system, collaborative response to individuals with mental illness who come in contact with the criminal or juvenile justice systems. This program is funded through Public Law 111-8 (Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2009). 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 will encourage early intervention for 'system-involved' individuals with mental illness; provide new and existing mental health courts with various treatment options; maximize diversion opportunities for non-violent offenders with mental illness and co-occurring disorders; promote training for justice and treatment professionals on criminal justice processed and mental health and substance abuse issues; and facilitate communication, collaboration, and the delivery of support services among justice professionals, treatment and related service providers, and governmental partners.

Washtenaw County Community Support and Treatment Services will use the expansion grant funding to expand their Justice Project Outreach Team (JPORT) program that addresses issues pertaining to individuals who are incarcerated with a mental illness. JPORT utilizes the Sequential Intercept for Change Model to work with individuals at each intercept point to divert them from jail or secure an early release and provide team-based ongoing supportive treatment. The program enhancements proposed will advance the program by providing: (1) psychiatric assessments in the jail for individuals with signs and symptoms of mental illness and trauma to ensure that early and appropriate treatment is started during the clients' incarceration; (2) nursing services to ensure that adequate integrated health and trauma services are available to women reentering the community; and (3) increased and improved trauma groups for women at all intercept points of the Sequential Intercept Model. This enhancement will solidify and expand services to eliminate the criminalization of the mentally ill in the Washtenaw County Jail with a special emphasis on women and trauma.

CA/NCF