Planning for Sequential Intercept Action

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 Chester County Department of Mental Health will use the Justice and Mental Health Collaboration Program (JMHCP) grant funds ($27,982) for a joint twelve-month planning effort. This planning effort will bring together the County's mental health, substance abuse, and criminal justice systems' stakeholders to discuss the Sequential Intercept Action project. The proposed Sequential Intercept Action project will follow a cross-system mapping session with Pennsylvania's new Mental Health and Justice Center of Excellence. The mapping exercise will engage mental health, substance abuse, and criminal justice systems' stakeholders in examining the County's strengths and weaknesses at each Sequential Intercept, and identify priorities for change and/or integration.

CA/NCF