Commonwealth Consortium Cross Systems Mapping Initiative

The Bureau of Justice Assistance's (BJA) Justice and Mental Health Collaboration Program (JMHCP) is funded through the Mentally Ill Offender Treatment and Crime Reduction Act of 2004 (Public Law 108-414), which was reauthorized in 2008 (Public Law 110-416). The primary purpose of JMHCP is 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 mental health and other treatment services for those individuals with mental illness or co-occurring mental health and substance use disorders. Jurisdictions are eligible to apply for planning, planning and implementation, or expansion funding through JMHCP.

The Commonwealth of Virginia, through the Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services (DBHDS), will use $200,000 in federal funding for the Justice and Mental Health Collaboration Program Category 3: Expansion Grant. Federal funding through this grant will enable the expansion and improvement of DBHDS's collaboration with DCJS, enhance substantive content of XSM Workshops, increase capacity and speed with which XSM Workshops are provided to communities across Virginia and improve data collection and evaluation.

This project will: 1) hire a full-time project coordinator to provide logistical, technical and subject matter expertise and assistance in the preparation, delivery and follow up for each workshop, as well as, oversee ongoing impact analysis; 2) provide 24 additional one and a half day XSM Workshops over two years; 3) expand the capacity of these workshops to focus on the special (and often overlapping) populations of at-risk and justice involved veterans, women, and homeless or under-housed individuals; and 4) provide a two-day facilitator training to expand the current roster of volunteer XSM facilitators, as well as, a half day refresher and new facilitator mentoring process for current facilitators.

CA/NCF