Archive

Having systems-level impact on the number of people with mental illnesses in jail is in no small part contingent upon “new” dollars. Speakers highlight opportunities to leverage state and federal funds for behavioral health care services, ways in which state justice agencies can support this work, and the role of philanthropy. Read More

This session provides a vision for what lies ahead for Stepping Up after the summit Read More

In this closing session, speakers discuss the MacArthur Foundation's Safety and Justice Challenge, as well as federal support and funding opportunities for reducing the prevalence of people with mental illnesses in jails. Closing remarks also cover what action steps participants can prioritize to bring what they learned at the summit home to their communities. Read More

People with mental illnesses and family members of people with mental illnesses discuss their own experiences with the behavioral health and justice systems, and why it is important to incorporate their perspectives into county plans. Read More

Bringing efforts to reduce the number of people with mental illnesses in jail to scale is a major challenge for counties across the country—it requires an ongoing, data-driven planning effort that results in systems-level changes in policy and practice. During this plenary, speakers from The Council of State Governments Justice Center describe the six questions county leaders need to answer to ensure they’re able to have systems-level impact on the number of people with mental illnesses in jail. County officials describe their answers to these six questions and then provide opportunities for county teams to discuss how their experiences relate to the counties profiled. Teams leave the session with a sense of the strengths and gaps in their existing efforts. Read More

Presenters explain the origins of the prevalence of people with mental illnesses in jail, lessons learned from efforts to address this problem over the last 15 years, and what it will take to have a true systems-level impact. Read More

Representatives of the organizations leading the Stepping Up Initiative—the American Psychiatric Association Foundation, the National Association of Counties, and The Council of State Governments Justice Center—welcome participants and review the goals of the summit. Read More

Teams of behavioral health and criminal justice professionals gathered in Washington, DC, this week to address the “human consequences of an inhumane system” in which 2 million adults with serious mental illnesses are admitted to county jails every year. The National Stepping Up Summit convened jail administrators, law enforcement officials, elected officials, psychiatrists, and other stakeholders from 50 jurisdictions across 37 states, seeking to guide attendees in developing a system-level plan to reduce the number of people with mental illnesses in their jails. Throughout the two-day summit, county teams attended working sessions framed by six questions related to the commitment of their local leadership, their use of screening and assessments, the existing level of baseline data in their county, the degree to which they track progress, and other considerations. Read More