Strategic Planning for Police and Mental Health Collaboration

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 (MIOTCRA) (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 (including opioid abuse disorders). Jurisdictions eligible to apply for this program were limited to states, units of local government, federally recognized Indian tribes (as determined by the Secretary of the Interior), and tribal organizations. The grant recipient will use the grant funds to demonstrate a commitment on the part of law enforcement, mental health agencies, and local government leaders by conducting a strategic planning process to select a law enforcement mental health collaboration (Crisis Intervention Team-CIT; Co-Responder Model, etc.) that will be expected to improve responses to people with mental illnesses and co-occurring substance use disorders. Teams consisting of police, local government, and mental health organization leadership will receive intensive technical assistance, including a mandatory in-person strategic planning session, to conduct a comprehensive assessment of current policies, practices, and resources available to respond to this population. Agencies and their partners will select and design the best model approach for growing an agency and community-wide strategy to improve police and community responses to people with mental health and co-occurring disorders. Agencies will be provided practical and actionable written guidance, drawn from the successful experiences of law enforcement, to design their police-mental health collaboration strategy. CA/NCF