Grantees

In October 2002, 10 grants were awarded to support programs that divert persons with mental illness from the criminal justice system to community mental health and supportive services. The number of grantees was increased by 7 in June, 2003 and by an additional 3 in April, 2004.

Each grant provided up to $300,000 in total costs (direct and indirect) and each TCE site is eligible to receive funding for up to 3 years. Grantees themselves are responsible for matching the federal funds with a 25 percent in-kind contribution.

Jail diversion grantees may plan programs for one or more points on the criminal justice processing spectrum, including pre-booking and post-booking programs. All funded diversion programs must refer the person to community-based mental health treatment providers. After initial referral to a mental health care provider, and subsequent to community-based screening and assessment by the provider, persons may be referred to other needed community-based services as specified in section 520G of the Public Health Service Act, 2002.

Jail diversion programs must build service capacity using four activity areas known to yield sustainable results:

1. Expand the capacity to implement evidence-based services, through implementation of required interventions, as specified in section 520G of the Public Health Service Act (2002). This goal includes training for service providers to implement the required evidence-based services. The evidence-based services include:
   
   Case management services
   Assertive Community Treatment
   Medication management and access
   Integrated mental health and co-occurring substance use treatment
   Psychiatric rehabilitation
   Life skills training
   Housing placement
   Vocational training
   Education job placement
   Health care
   Gender-based services for women
   Trauma-specific services
   
   The goal also aims to improve access to and quality of treatment to persons from racial/ethnic minorities and rural settings and fostering cultural competence.
2. Create service linkages between individuals and groups that serve the targeted population (e.g., mental health and substance abuse service providers and criminal justice system personnel). This includes:
   
   developing partnerships and coalitions among mental health, substance abuse and criminal justice systems to increase systems integration
   developing specific linkages among key personnel in each system.
   
   
3. Undertake community outreach to communicate to the larger community the importance of mental health and the capacity of the jail diversion program to serve people with mental illness. Required activities include:
   
   building consensus among stakeholders and potential stakeholders for the adoption, implementation and evaluation of the jail diversion program
   ensuring that services are available for the target population ensuring that the community accepts the use of the services as beneficial.
   
   
4. Engage in program evaluation and dissemination to demonstrate program outcomes and the quality and completeness of services implementation.