The 2009 Alabama Justice and Mental Health Collaboration Training Initiative

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.

The Alabama Department of Mental Health and Mental Retardation will utilize its FY 2009 Justice and Mental Health Collaboration award funds in the amount of $250,000 to fund a Category 2 Planning and Implementation Grant. The goal of the project is to increase the number of mental health and justice personnel trained, by developing an integrated training initiative for court personnel and mental health/co-occurring service providers who work directly with adult and juvenile offenders with mental health co-occurring disorders. The proposed program will provide education and training to interested courts, mental health and substance abuse providers to effectively design, implement, and evaluate specialty courts in their community.

The Alabama Justice and Mental Health Collaboration Task Force will oversee planning and implementation activities that will include three key components: (1) Review and modify specific components of an already developed statewide strategic plan that focuses on the top priorities identified by the Alabama Justice and Mental Health Collaboration Program Task Force; (2) Develop and implement comprehensive training, technical assistance teams and toolkits, based on research and best practices, for local communities to utilize for specialty court/diversion program planning and implementation; and (3) Develop and implement an effective evaluation process that measures common outcomes across jurisdictions that can be published and disseminated to policymakers and other interested parties.

CA/NCF