The 130th Annual Meeting of APHA

Abstract #38700

Barry C. Savitz, MGA, Coordinating Office for Drug and Alcohol Abuse Programs, City of Philadelphia, 1101 Market Street, Suite 800, Philadelphia, PA 19107, 215-685-5425, barry.savitz@phila.gov

"Criminal justice treatment initiatives:Alternatives to incarceration" will have a panel describe how they have enhanced community safety by providing felony offenders with substance abuse and mental health treatment and related services under criminal justice supervision as an alternative to incarceration in Philadelphia, PA. The Behavioral Health System, consisting of the County offices of Drug and Alcohol and Mental Health and the City's managed behavioral healthcare organization, and the criminal justice system have collaborated to develop and fund the Forensic Intensive Recovery (FIR) Program and five other criminal justice treatment initiatives to safely reintegrate felony offenders with substance abuse and co-occurring mental illness. The presenters will present the comprehensive continuum of care from the clinical assessment of behavioral health needs, to placement in treatment during incarceration, to drug and alcohol treatment in the community, culminating with vocational training and job placement and counseling and economic self-sufficiency and family reunification. The session will present strategies to assist other jurisdictions to establish an integrated collaboration among the substance abuse, criminal justice, and public welfare systems. The presentation will include the results of an evaluation of the FIR program which showed a 66% decrease in convictions among FIR clients who completed 6 months of treatment and a 37% decrease among FIR clients who had any treatment compared to the control group 18 months after release from incarceration and a 44% decrease in convictions among FIR clients who completed 6 months of treatment and a 25% decrease among FIR clients who had any treatment compared to the control group 48 months after release from incarceration.

Learning Objectives:

• Participants will be able to identify strategies to establish an integrated collaboration between the criminal justice and behavioral health systems to address the needs of criminal justice clients with co-occurring disorders of substance abuse and mental illness.
• The audience will be able to identify key relationships among various public agencies and summarize strategies to achieve cooperation and collaboration among participants to establish a continuum of treatment and related services for the criminal justice population to replicate such collaboration in their own jurisdiction.
• Participants will describe the role of the Pennsylvania Department of Public Welfare, the Coordinating Office for Drug and Alcohol Abuse Programs of the Philadelphia Behavioral Health System, and the Defender Association of Philadelphia in establishing a program for making applications for Medical Assistance in a correctional institution, describe the design and implementation of the Medical Assistance applications process for inmates from incarceration to release to community-based substance abuse treatment, the positive impact on the access to care for clients, and how to replicate this collaboration in their own jurisdictions.

Keywords: Drug Abuse Treatment, Criminal Justice

Presenting author's disclosure statement:
I have a significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.
Relationship: employment