CASES' Community Mental Health Center (CMHC) program--"Mobile Outreach Team and Rapid Access Psychiatric Services to Address Unmet Needs among Criminal Legal System-Involved Individuals with SED, SMI, and CODs in New York City"--will serve a focus population of Harlem residents and criminal legal system-involved adolescents and adults with SED, SMI, and CODs. The program will leverage CASES' forensic-specialist Nathaniel Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinic (CCBHC) in Central Harlem to 1) launch new mobile outreach and crisis response teams, each featuring a licensed clinician and peer specialist, and 2) expand rapid access to urgent psychiatric care, including bridge medication. During the pandemic, the Nathaniel CCBHC has seen surging demand for services among its Harlem-residing and CLS-involved focus populations. Since mid-March 2020, the clinic's client census has doubled with a corresponding near doubling (90% increase) in service volume, straining clinic capacity and leading to increasing wait times from referral to clinic intake and to psychiatric care appointments. The mobile outreach/crisis team and rapid-access psychiatric services will thus address a critical unmet need to 1) engage and retain the focus population in CCBHC outpatient and rehabilitative services and 2) immediately respond to clients experiencing crisis in the community and/or urgent psychiatric need. The program includes a "swing" licensed clinician both to ensure extensive mobile response coverage and to provide rapid-access clinic intake appointments for clients engaged by the mobile teams. Within the focus population, services will specifically prioritize individuals navigating reentry to the community from jail or prison, CCBHC clients who have disengaged from treatment, and individuals experiencing acute crisis. The program will serve 500 people over two years, promoting objectives including rapid crisis response, rapid access to psychiatric services, improved referral pathways and outpatient treatment engagement for individuals navigating jail and prison reentry, improved mental health symptoms, and increased engagement in CCBHC rehabilitative support services, the latter facilitated in part through sustained delivery of robust Nathaniel CCBHC telehealth services established during the pandemic. Consistent with CMHC Grant Program goals, the program will engage mental health clinicians, peers, and related workforce in best practice trainings in crisis/emergency response, vicarious trauma, grief/bereavement, and peer integration.
