Archive

Across the country, many jurisdictions find that some of the people who frequently encounter criminal justice, behavioral health, and social service systems are experiencing behavioral health crises and require different levels and intensity of services. Featuring three Stepping Up Innovator Counties that are also MacArthur Foundation Safety and Justice Challenge sites, this series provides information on how to effectively serve and increase engagement with people who frequently cycle in and out of jails, emergency departments, homeless shelters, and other community-based settings. This first session provides an overview of how the sites identified these populations and explores their continuum of care for behavioral health crisis services. Read More

Since its launch in 2015, more than 500 counties across 43 states have joined the Stepping Up initiative and worked to reduce the prevalence of mental illness in their jails. Stepping Up partners recently announced a new call to action—Set, Measure, Achieve—to support counties in setting targets to reduce the number of people with serious mental illnesses in their jails, measuring progress toward meeting these targets, and achieving results. As part of the new call to action, this webinar will explain how counties can obtain data to establish baselines for Stepping Up’s four key measures and set targets for reducing indicators of serious mental illness in jails. A representative from a county sheriff’s office will discuss the role of sheriffs in facilitating access to data on serious mental illness in jails. Speakers will also address specific challenges that can complicate counties’ efforts to identify accurate baseline data. IT staff from county sheriffs’ offices and county jails are encouraged to attend this webinar. Read More

Set, Measure, Achieve is a new national call to action for Stepping Up counties to establish and reach measurable goals that demonstrate reduced prevalence of mental illness in jails. Join us for a special virtual event on September 30, to commemorate five years of Stepping Up and learn more about how counties can participate in Set, Measure, Achieve. Read More

The Stepping Up initiative encourages counties to reduce the number of people with mental illness in county jail systems. Counties in California are increasingly focusing their efforts on addressing mental illness in the criminal justice system, but one of the barriers to making progress in this work is accurately identifying who has mental illness in jail systems and collecting data on this population. This webinar will provide an overview of the recommended three-step approach for identifying mental illness in jails that is required to be a Stepping Up Innovator. The webinar will feature representatives from California’s two recognized Innovator Sites, Calaveras County and San Luis Obispo County, who will discuss their screening, assessment, and data collection processes. There will also be time for questions and answers on the webinar. Read More

In Part 2 of the webinar series with the Data-Driven Justice Initiative, this webinar featured counties that have implemented policies and practices that identify frequent utilizers of these systems and use this information to connect people with appropriate treatment and services. Read More

This webinar gave an overview of the recommended approach for identifying and collecting data on people with mental illness in jails. The three steps include: 1) using a shared definition of serious mental illness across justice and behavioral health systems; 2) screening people booked into jail using a validated screening tool for serious mental illness and referring people who screen positive for assessment; and 3) recording screening and assessment information electronically and regularly reporting out on this population Read More

The Stepping Up Four Key Measures Case Studies serve as a quick reference to the strategies highlighted in this series and share suggested sub-measures associated with each of these measures to help counties better collect and analyze their data. Read More

This webinar gave an overview of how counties can start or re-engage their Stepping Up planning and implementation process, following the Stepping Up Six Questions Framework Read More

This webinar focused on how counties can measure average length of stay at the jail and how counties can shorten average length of stay at the jail for people with mental illness Read More