Training For Mental Health Professionals

Just as staff in the criminal justice system recognize the need to learn new skills that will allow them to provide appropriate care for people with mental illness with whom they have contact, those who work in the mental health field must develop awareness of the special needs of people with mental illness who have been arrested and/or incarcerated. If they are to help people with mental illness who have criminal histories to live in the community at large, mental health staff must understand the implications of those histories as well as the imprint arrest and incarceration may leave on a person. They also must understand the criminal justice system itself so that they can interact productively with their counterparts in that system.

Criminal justice agencies and community mental health programs have different traditions, missions, and often even different values. Their staff have typically been trained very differently. One way of looking at these differences is to think of them as different cultures. In order to achieve successful collaboration and integration of resources, staff from both arenas will need to understand their cultural differences as well as appreciate their overlapping missions.

An analogous situation arose when substance abuse treatment began to increase in jails and prisons. What was discovered at that time was that cross-training was necessary for solid collaboration and integration of services. Cross-training here simply means that each staff train the other, so that criminal justice personnel learn more about mental health and mental health staff learn more about criminal justice in a combined learning environment.

Training topics for mental health providers and administrators include the following:

Training about law enforcement

	the public safety responsibilities of law enforcement officers
	police protocols for the use of force
	responsibilities of first and backup responders
	officers' expectations of community providers
	familiarity with law enforcement officers and officials
	the booking process

Training about the court

	general court procedures
	information sharing in the court setting
	responsibilities of prosecutors, court administrators, defense attorneys, and judges
	conditional release programs and their administration in the jurisdiction

Training about corrections agencies

	jail classification procedures
	jail personnel and the jail environment
	correctional procedures, including intake and classification
	scope of behavioral health services available in prison
	correctional medical staff and facilities
	corrections release planning staff and procedures
	community corrections (e.g. probation, parole) procedures and protocols
	familiarity with the rules of Medicaid, SSI, SSDI, TANF, and other benefit programs for those who are incarcerated in jail or prison

Training about working with consumers who have been involved with, or are at risk of being involved with, the criminal justice system

	advanced directives
	the effects of correctional incarceration on mental illness
	obstacles faced by individuals who have been incarcerated
	ensuring the safety of the provider and consumer
	cultural competency
	housing options in the community for people with mental illness

Recommendations for Implementation

a.		Work with university and other mental health professional training programs to enhance their curricula on the criminal justice system.

Training programs for mental health professionals around the country are slowly changing their curricula to address working with a criminal justice system population. Training in this area has several purposes. By enabling mental health staff to use and understand terminology common in the criminal justice system, the training would allow them to work more effectively with staff in that system. Training also could have a more clinical orientation, helping mental health staff to better understand the complex needs of people with mental illness who are in contact with the criminal justice system. Depending on the approach of the program, topics to be addressed might include everything from the basics of criminal law and the criminal justice system to applying relapse prevention techniques to criminal thinking.

With law schools and criminology programs adding courses on mental illness, mental health practitioners may also wish to enroll in them for the purpose of better understanding the criminal justice system's orientation. This would be especially true in areas or settings where criminal justice issues have not yet penetrated professional mental health training programs. (See Policy Statement 29: Training for Court Personnel, for more on law school and continuing legal education classes regarding mental illness.)

b.		Develop in-service curricula for mental health staff that address obstacles to working with criminal justice clients.

In-service training is likely to be of more use to mental health staff already working in the field. In many mental health agencies, training in a number of clinical and nonclinical areas is already frequently scheduled. Adding training in criminal justice issues will generally not pose great logistical difficulty.

This in-service training would have several purposes. It would provide current information to mental health staff about provisions in the criminal justice system for treatment of people with mental illness. It would allow mental health and criminal justice personnel to build and enhance relationships. And it would provide a forum for problem areas to be identified, potentially leading to plans for subsequent training.

In-service training also could provide opportunities for mental health staff to learn from clients themselves and their families about the challenges they face when reentering the community after time in jail or prison - or even after an arrest with no time having been served. People with mental illness who have criminal justice histories often find they face an additional stigma. Training that involves mental health staff and clients with histories of criminal justice involvement can provide opportunities to address this stigma and the discrimination faced by many such clients.

Example: Transitions Training, New York State Office of Mental Health

The New York State Office of Mental Health has developed a training program for mental health agency administrators and supervisors to help them better serve individuals with mental illness who have been incarcerated in state prison. The training program addresses coordination with parole staff as well as the stigma attached to involvement in the criminal justice system. The training is delivered by mental health consumers who have experienced the struggles of incarceration in state prison and release back into the community. A mental health advocacy group provides consumer-trainers with support.

Example: Connecticut Jail Diversion Project

Mental health clinicians in Connecticut's Jail Diversion Project receive periodic in-service training about the missions and procedures of the different criminal justice agencies with which they collaborate. Representatives from the Department of Corrections, the State's Attorney's office and the Public Defender's office (among others) participate in the training and discuss case scenarios with the clinicians. The clinicians learn how to maintain the integrity of their role as treatment professionals while operating in the criminal justice system.