Applicant: People Incorporated
Project: Corrections Integrated Support: Improvement and Advancement
Project Summary: Corrections Integrated Support: Improvement and Advancement (CIS) improves coordination between corrections and health systems and expands access to integrated community-based behavioral health supports for justice-involved adults with serious mental illness and/or substance use disorders. CIS introduces behavioral health assessments, interventions, and resource linkage from community-based providers across the corrections process to address justice-involved individuals’ behavioral health needs, improve social determinants of health, improve behavioral health outcomes, and reduce criminogenic risk factors.
Population to be served: CIS will target justice-involved adults—including those currently incarcerated in Ramsey County Adult Detention Center, Dakota County Jail, and Anoka County Jail, as well as those involved in the corrections process and living in the community in the Twin Cities metro area—exhibiting symptoms of behavioral and co-occurring health challenges. Minnesota’s jail population is 85% male, 15% female; 51% white, 27.6% Black, 8.9% American Indian, 2.5% Asian, 9.8% Latinx, and less than 1% other Pacific Islander or multi-racial; and a majority qualify as low-income (BJS Census of Jails, 2005-2019). A report by Arnold Ventures and the National Association of Counties shows 44% of jail inmates have been diagnosed with SMI, 63% with an SUD, and 45% with co-occurring diagnoses—a rate nearly 12 times that of the public. Correspondingly, the National Council of Wellness has identified justice-involved individuals as a high-need population experiencing significant behavioral health care disparities.
Strategies/interventions: With funding from the CCBHC Improvement and Advancement grant, CIS will continue and expand delivery of the following services/interventions to more justice-involved individuals in corrections facilities and in the community over a longer duration: 1) early screening, assessments, and diagnosis; 2) patient-centered treatment planning, including crisis planning; 3) case management and integrated care coordination in collaboration with corrections health care staff; and 4) integrated care navigation, referrals, and individualized transition planning connecting participants to community resources and social support opportunities. Direct services provided to justice-involved individuals in the community (i.e., not currently incarcerated) include peer crisis support services, peer bridge services to assist individuals transitioning between residential or inpatient settings to the community, peer trauma support, and access to People Incorporated services across the continuum of care.
Goals & objectives: CIS goals include: 1) increasing the capacity of county jails to identify inmates with mental health needs; 2) decreasing negative behavioral health outcomes and improving social determinants of health among justice-involved individuals pre- and post-release; and 3) improving community health and safety by implementing integrated, pre-release transition programming where possible to address health-based risk factors for recidivism. Objectives for the 4-year project period include providing comprehensive, community-based mental health services to 770 justice-involved individuals (Year 1: 245, Year 2: 175, Year 3: 175, Year 4: 175); continuing to refine operating procedures and coordination with corrections system partners with input from consumer representatives; and developing and delivering population-specific training to CIS staff and 50 other community mental health providers.