1. Specialty Mental Health Probation: A Cross-Agency Pilot Project
Gary S. Cuddeback, Tonya VanDeinse, Stacey Burgin – UNC-CH
Anne Precythe, Karen Buck, David Edwards – DPS
Sonya Brown, Dale Willetts – DHHS
Lee Coble, Mary Ringley, Ed Mazcyk – Sampson County Probation
North Carolina’s 2015 CIT Conference: Our Time is Now: Building the Bridge Together
February 10, 2015
McKimmon Center – Raleigh, NC
This project is supported by funding from the North Carolina Governor’s Crime Commission and the North Carolina Department of Public Safety. We would like to acknowledge the efforts of our many project partners in Wake and Sampson Counties, including: Judicial District Managers, Chief Probation Officers, and probation officers; TASC; Alliance and Eastpointe MCOs; and local behavioral health providers.

2. Today’s Agenda Scope of mental health/criminal justice interface
Brief overview of statewide training initiatives and specialty mental health probation
Panel Discussion – perspectives of DPS, DHHS, UNC-CH about collaboration and implementation of training efforts and pilot project
Q & A

3. Criminal Justice and Mental Health
Mental health system has shrunk over last 50 yrs.
Jails, prisons and community corrections have a larger and ever-increasing role in the care and management of persons with mental illness.
Exodus from our prisons and jails mirrors the deinstitutionalization of state hospitals that started over 30 years ago.
Probation officers now routinely have offenders with a spectrum of mental health, substance abuse and personality disorders on their caseloads.

4. Daily Number of Persons with Mental Illness in the Criminal Justice System
31% of female jail inmates and 15% of male inmates have mental illness (Steadman et al., 2009)
June 2009 ~ 130,140 jail inmates with mental illness ready for release
24% of female and 16% of male prisoners have mental illness (Ditton, 1999)
June 2009 ~ 267,994 prisoners with mental illness potentially ready for community reentry
About 27% of 5 million probationers have mental illness (Crilly et al., 2009)
~ 1.35 million probationers!
Approximately 54,000 in state hospitals
Prisons
Jails
Probation/Parole
# MI
276,994
130,140
1,350,000

5. Justice-involved Persons living with Mental Illness
Justice-involved persons living with severe mental illness ….
High rates of substance use, which is associated with violence, treatment noncompliance, homelessness, and frequent criminal justice contacts (Clark et al., 1999; Drake & Mueser, 2001; Horsfall et al., 2009; Steadman, 2000; Theriot & Segal, 2005).
Difficulty accessing housing and services and have high recidivism rates (Cloyes et al., 2010; Fisher et al., 2007; Gagliardi et al., 2004; Lovell et al., 2002; Mallik-Kane & Visher, 2008; Skeem & Louden, 2006).

6. Criminal Justice and Mental Health
Offenders living with mental illness present unique challenges across the criminal justice system – courts, jails, prisons, and community supervision – and criminal justice agents need ongoing training and support to meet the needs of this large and growing population.
Justice-based interventions such as mental health courts, jail and prison-based cognitive behavioral treatments, Crisis Intervention Training, and specialty mental health probation exemplify the changing landscape of corrections at the interface of criminal justice and mental health.

7. GCC Grant
Here in North Carolina, with a generous grant from the Governor’s Crime Commission and funding from DPS, principals from DPS, DHHS and UNC-CH have led efforts to …
Train and provide more information about mental health to all probation officers and other stakeholders across the state and
Launch two specialty mental health probation pilots in Wake and Sampson Counties.

8. Statewide Training
To date, statewide mental health training modules have been disseminated to all probation officers, chiefs, district managers and other DPS stakeholders across the state (n=~2100), as well as to TASC employees and other stakeholders.
The six training modules cover the following topics:
(1) using and interpreting the risk and needs assessment;
(2) severe mental illness;
(3) psychiatric medications;
(4) PTSD, personality disorders and other disorders;
(5) crisis response and local services for persons with mental illness; and
(6) self-care for probation officers.

9. Specialty Mental Health Probation
Specialty mental health caseloads have been widely disseminated and typically include ..
(1) exclusive mental health caseloads;
(2) reduced caseloads;
(3) ongoing officer training; and
(4) a problem-solving supervision orientation (Skeem & Louden, 2006; Skeem et al., 2006).
Here, we have added …
On-going training in MI + on-going mental health supervision by LCSW + community capacity building

10. SMHPs (cont’d)
SMHPs have been fully implemented in Sampson and Wake Counties
Probationers with mental illness are being randomly assigned to specialty mental health probation or regular probation as a part of a rigorous outcomes evaluation
Currently, over 40 offenders are voluntarily participating in the project

11. Implementation of SMHPs
Partnership between DPS, DHHS and UNC-CH
Committee meetings
Training
Education
Community capacity building
Stakeholder meetings

12. Today’s Panel Department of Public Safety DHHS UNC-CH
Anne Precythe, Karen Buck, David Edwards
Chief Probation Officers and Probation Officers Coble, Ringley, Mazyck, Gould, Harris
DHHS
Sonya Brown, Dale Willets
UNC-CH
Gary Cuddeback, Stacey Burgin, Tonya VanDeinse

13. Panelist Perspectives
Department of Public Safety
Need for SMHP, role of DPS, experiences with implementation, officers’ experiences with implementation and training, day-to-day experiences – Sampson County
DHHS
Need for SMHP, role of TASC, experiences with implementation
UNC-CH
Need for SMHP, experiences with implementation, community capacity building, stakeholder meetings

14. THANKS!
Gary Cuddeback