Aligning Health and Safety helps states work collaboratively with communities to build local capacity to reduce the number of people with behavioral health needs in local criminal justice systems. This improves health, makes communities safer, and supports wiser investments.
Across the country, communities seek solutions that improve outcomes for people with behavioral health needs and communities and reduce reliance on law enforcement, jails, and emergency departments.
State policymakers in all three branches are central to accelerating progress at the local level. They can
- Unlock a variety of resources and supports for communities to appropriately divert, treat, and support people with behavioral health needs, and
- Amplify lessons learned across the state, allowing local efforts to scale up.
By aligning priorities, plans, and funding across systems, states can help communities break cycles of incarceration, hospitalization, and housing instability for people with behavioral health needs. The result is healthier people and safer communities.
The CSG Justice Center helps states harness local knowledge to protect public safety and improve individual health.
Our work leverages decades of experience bringing people together, providing expert assistance, and developing tailored state policy recommendations to help communities meet their public health and safety goals.
Collectively, this work—which includes varying levels of technical assistance in multiple states—is called Aligning Health and Safety.
Interested in learning how we can support your state? Contact Sarah Wurzburg at [email protected] for consultation information.
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Key Staff
Hallie Fader-Towe
Director of Justice and Health Initiatives, Behavioral Health
Hallie Fader-Towe works with local and state policymakers to craft policies, processes, and programs that will work best for their jurisdictions. In her positions with the CSG Justice Center, she has worked with jurisdictions around the country on collaborative, data-driven planning and implementation efforts to address criminal justice functions from initial detention through reentry, including a focus on people with mental illnesses.
Alex Ruth
Deputy Program Director, Behavioral Health
Alex Ruth oversees the strategic direction, quality and impact of projects at the intersection of justice, Medicaid, health and housing, including the development and delivery of training and technical assistance for a range of policymakers in states across the nation.
Sarah Wurzburg
Deputy Division Director, Behavioral Health
Sarah Wurzburg oversees technical assistance focused on behavioral health, diversion, and reentry and serves as the lead for projects related to substance use, mental illnesses, and housing. She leads the work on the development of community responder programs, including a toolkit that supports sites in development of non-police responses to people in crisis.