To develop and maintain collaborative comprehensive case plans (CC Case Plans) that reflect the partnership necessary to help each participant succeed, criminal justice and behavioral health professionals must include and incorporate the following 10 priorities and components. Each priority or component below also includes related tools and resources for further information, when applicable.
Priorities and Components to Implementing CC Case Plans
1. Interagency Collaboration and Information Sharing
2. Staff Training
3. Screening and
Assessment
4. Case Conference Procedures
5. Participant Engagement
6. Prioritized Needs
and Goals
7. Responsivity
8. Legal Information
9. Participant
Strengths
10. Gender Considerations
To develop CC Case Plans, lead case planners must identify the appropriate people from the agencies who will comprise the case management team for participants. The people on the case management teams should include representatives from criminal justice, behavioral health, and social service agencies to ensure that participants’ criminogenic risk and needs and behavioral health needs are addressed in a balanced manner.
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Spotlight:
The Franklin County Sheriff’s Office did not try to start from scratch when identifying the appropriate partnering agencies for their reentry program. Instead, the sheriff looked to many of the agencies his staff had already collaborated with successfully and identified which agencies would best contribute to reentry planning and would also be most willing to help his staff manage participants’ case plans. Once those agencies were identified, he enlisted the help of local experts in criminal justice and behavioral health to make sure the program would adequately address participants’ criminogenic risk and needs and behavioral health needs.
1. Interagency Collaboration and Information Sharing
To develop CC Case Plans, lead case planners must identify the appropriate people from the agencies who will comprise the case management team for participants. The people on the case management teams should include representatives from criminal justice, behavioral health, and social service agencies to ensure that participants’ criminogenic risk and needs and behavioral health needs are addressed in a balanced manner.
Read More
Spotlight:
The Franklin County Sheriff’s Office did not try to start from scratch when identifying the appropriate partnering agencies for their reentry program. Instead, the sheriff looked to many of the agencies his staff had already collaborated with successfully and identified which agencies would best contribute to reentry planning and would also be most willing to help his staff manage participants’ case plans. Once those agencies were identified, he enlisted the help of local experts in criminal justice and behavioral health to make sure the program would adequately address participants’ criminogenic risk and needs and behavioral health needs.
2. Staff Training
To help participants reduce their risk of recidivating and advance their goals for recovery, all members of the case management team should be trained on the Risk-Need-Responsivity model and behavioral health recovery principles and should learn how to use that information to develop participants’ case plans. Partnering agencies should use cross-training opportunities to help staff bridge any knowledge gaps and maximize the impact of training.
Spotlight:
Bridgeway Recovery Services, the behavioral health care provider for Marion County (Oregon’s) Reentry Initiative, offers and facilitates trainings on behavioral health and other relevant topics that their staff and officers and staff at the Marion County Sheriff’s Department can attend. This opportunity for cross training helps the sheriff’s department maximize its budget, but also allows the staff at both agencies to interact with and learn from each other.
3. Screening and
Assessment
Agencies should use validated criminogenic risk, substance use disorder, and mental illness screenings and assessments to choose which participants are placed in reentry and diversion programs and to help them develop these participants’ case plans. Once the appropriate people in the partnering agencies have participants’ assessment results, they should incorporate this information into their case plans, and the results should inform the priorities of the case plan.
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Resources:
- Mental Health Screens for Corrections
- On the Over-Valuation of Risk for People with Mental Illnesses
- Advancing Fairness and Transparency: National Guidelines for Post-Conviction Risk and Needs Assessment
- Risk Needs Assessment 101: Science Reveals New Tools to Manage Offenders
- Screening and Assessment of Co-occurring Disorders in the Justice System
- Three Things You Can Do to Prevent Bias in Risk Assessment
4. Case Conference Procedures
Because multiple people and agencies will be involved in managing participants’ case plans, case conferences can help the people on the participants’ case management teams identify the available services to address their criminogenic, behavioral health, and psychosocial needs and prioritize those needs that are most critical to participants’ reentry success.
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5. Participant Engagement
Lead case planners must ensure that participants and the people in their support system are actively involved in the development of their case plans. When participants are activity engaged, they are more likely to feel a sense of ownership over their programming and are more invested in their own recovery.
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Family-based treatment can be an effective intervention model for people in the criminal justice system. If a participant engages in family-based treatment, the lead case planner should also include family members (i.e., whomever the person identifies as family) in the case planning process, which can support participant motivation. Case plan goals should be customized to the individual and their efforts toward family reunification and stability.
Spotlight:
Some lead case planners use peer mentors to help keep participants actively involved in their reentry programming. Bridgeway Recovery Services uses peer mentors to conduct weekly mentoring groups with participants while they are still incarcerated. After participants are released from prison, the peer mentors also spend the first day of release with participants to help connect them to resources (i.e., linkages to affordable housing options, referrals to medical care, and assistance in getting their government-issued identification reinstated).
6. Prioritized Needs
and Goals
Most participants will have multiple needs to address in their reentry or diversion programming, so lead case planners should prioritize addressing those needs that help decrease participants’ risk of recidivism, improve their health, and ensure public safety.
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Resources:
- A Best Practice Approach to Community Reentry from Jails for Inmates with Co-Occurring Disorders: The APIC Model
- Adults with Behavioral Health Needs under Correctional Supervision: A Shared Framework for Reducing Recidivism and Promoting Recovery
- A Checklist for Implementing Evidence-Based Practices and Programs (EBPs) for Justice-Involved Adults with Behavioral Health Disorders
- Guidelines for the Successful Transition of People with Behavioral Health Disorders from Jail and Prison
- Risk-Need-Responsivity Model for Offender Assessment and Rehabilitation
7. Responsivity
To incorporate responsivity principles into case plans, criminal justice and behavioral health professionals must adapt services and treatment to address each person’s unique characteristics and barriers to learning. Lead case planners should use the results from criminogenic, behavioral health, and psychosocial assessments to determine which tailored interventions can help participants based on these individual characteristics and how those characteristics can impact the effectiveness of participants’ treatment.
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8. Legal Information
Lead case planners should ask partner agencies for any legal information (such as court dates, conditions of supervision, and child custody orders) that might impact participants’ supervision plans, conditions of release, court participation requirements, treatment approaches, interventions, or access to housing, employment, or other programs. This information should be included in participants’ case plans and shared with the appropriate people in the participants’ case management team so they can support participants in activities such as appearing in court when required, attending community supervision appointments, complying with child custody orders, or finding affordable housing post incarceration.
9. Participant
Strengths
One effective way to keep participants engaged in their reentry or diversion programming is to identify personal strengths, such as employment experience or family support, that can aid in their success. Lead case planners should account for these personal strengths (also known as protective factors) when developing case plans and ensure that participants are engaged in evidence-based programming that can build on those strengths and reduce their chances of recidivating.
Spotlight:
Probation officers in San Joaquin County’s Probation Department (the lead case planner for their collaboration) develop participants’ reentry plans in coordination with that participant and his or her family, clinician, and case manager. By engaging participants and the people in their support systems early on, probation officers can get participants to think about their own personal strengths that will help them succeed in achieving their reentry and recovery goals.
10. Gender Considerations
Women often have different behavioral health needs and responsivity factors than men, so lead case planners or one of their partner agencies should utilize gender-responsive approaches to help women develop goals related to their specific needs. These approaches can help agencies ensure that risk and behavioral health screening and assessments tools, case management processes, and programming are effective for women in the justice system.
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Resources:
- Addressing the Needs of Women and Girls: Developing Core Competencies for Mental Health and Substance Abuse Service Professionals
- Adopting a Gender-Responsive Approach for Women in the Justice System: A Resource Guide
- Gender-Responsive Policy and Practice Assessment (GRPPA)
- Guidance to States: Treatment Standards for Women with Substance Use Disorders
- Reentry Considerations for Justice Involved Women
- Ten Truths That Matter When working with Justice Involved Women
- Women Offender Case Management Model