Seattle University Collaborative Projects - International Academy of ...

planning in achieving engagement with mental health services. This, in turn, would lead toimproved mental health and community stability outcomes, including reduced risk of reincarcerationAn NIMH-funded field-based RCT is currently underway, in which 216 men withmental illness recruited from the mental health services of a state prison system were randomizedto either CTI or a comparison condition, Enhanced Reentry Planning (ERP). Participants werefollowed for up to 18 months after release. CTI was associated with stronger engagement withcommunity care practitioners 90 days after release. The accessibility and capacity of services inthe community settings are a key challenge of this work. Further analysis will test the completemeditational outcome model towards varied outcomes relating to health, social integration, andcriminal justice involvement. It appears that social isolation and limited network resources aremore essential elements of the challenge than access to psychiatric care alone.Inside the “Black Box” of Forensic Assertive Community TreatmentBeth Angell, Rutgers University (angell@ssw.rutgers.edu)Concern about the overrepresentation of people with mental illness in the criminal justice systemhas led to the development and/or adaptation of interventions to divert offenders to mental healthtreatment in lieu of incarceration or during the reentry period. Forensic Assertive CommunityTreatment (FACT) represents the adaptation of an evidence based treatment program for mentalillness to the context of justice involvement. Although preliminary evidence of FACTeffectiveness is promising, its specific program elements continue to be debated and refined.According to a recent study, the most controversial area concerns the role of leverage forpromoting adherence to treatment and behavioral expectations; some existing FACT programsinsist that leverage is necessary to engage a high risk population, whereas others maintain thatleverage is overly coercive and undermines trust and self determination. This presentation willpresent an overview of the current evidence base for FACT, trace major issues of controversyand, drawing upon an ethnographic study of a FACT program designed for prison reentry inChicago, discuss how practitioners use and strategize to find alternatives to leverage in thecontext of FACT. Specifically, the use of relational strategies of adherence management will bedelineated and illustrated through specific cases.Envisioning the Next Generation of Behavioral Health and Criminal JusticeInterventionsMatthew W. Epperson, University of Chicago (mepperson@uchicago.edu)Nancy Wolff, Rutgers University (nwolff@cbhs.rutgers.edu)Robert Morgan, Texas Tech University (robert.morgan@ttu.edu)William Fisher, University of Massachusetts Lowell (Bill.Fisher@umassmed.edu)B. Christopher Frueh, University of Hawaii (frueh@hawaii.edu)374