[Music]
Hello, I'm Ivette Torres and welcome to another
edition of the Road to Recovery. Today we'll be
talking about Criminal Justice Reform: Implications
for Services for Mental and Substance Use
Disorders. Joining us in our panel today are:
Dr. Kimberly Johnson, Director, Center for
Substance Abuse Treatment and the Substance
Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration,
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services,
Rockville, Maryland;
Timothy Wynn, Veteran Certified Peer Specialist in
the City of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania;
George Williams, Vice President of Community and
Government Affairs for Treatment Alternatives for
Safe Communities (TASC) Chicago, Illinois;
Roberta Meyers, Director of the Legal Action
Center's National H.I.R.E, Helping Individuals with
Criminal Records Reenter Through Employment
Network, Atlanta, Georgia.
So George, as communities prepare to reenter
individuals from the Criminal Justice System, can
you explain to us what are the likely critical
physical health and behavioral health needs that
they will have upon reentry into the community?
That's a very good question. I think that one of the
critical needs is housing; that if individuals
returning to the community don't have stable
housing, then that creates imbalance in them
being able to make a decision and make steps
towards taking their rightful places back in their
respective communities. I think also that the
community one, have to understand that
communities sometimes have to find ways to
embrace the individual and they would need to
understand that there's certain things that he or
she has to do to navigate and to make the right
decisions because they're coming back different
from how they left. They have to come back with
a new attitude, a new belief, and the community
has to find a way to embrace that new desire to
make changes in their lives. But housing, I think, is
fundamental to having a successful experience.
Thank you, George. Kim, as we're looking at
criminal justice reform, are we setting up an
approach that actually addresses those needs of
the individuals that are returning?
I think when we look at the people that are
returning from jails or prisons, those are some of
the things that we're looking at that we really need
to consider a whole comprehensive array of
services for people that are coming out and
starting a new life. So housing is certainly one of
the biggest issues that we know, healthcare, access
to substance use disorder treatment, and that is
one of the things I think I want to point out is
people are at very high risk at the point where they
reenter the community. Their tolerance for their
drugs of choice is lower. We know that it's a time
of risk for overdose, so we need to get them linked
up very quickly to services and whichever services
that they need.
Roberta, we are doing that through the Drug Court
Program. How is that happening in real life?
In multiple ways. Through National HIRE Network
and Legal Action Center we're seeing that many
agencies have to be involved and engaged in that
community transition process because people
need to be connected to the services that both Kim
and George talked about. If they went in with
addiction issues, they need to be connected to
care and treatment in the community. Many folks
don't have stable housing set up and that could
jeopardize their reentry. But one thing for those
that are going through specialized court systems,
often what they find, these systems have been set
up to deal with the multiple needs and challenges
that that individual may face, and that specifically
is connected to their criminal behavior and I think
that's what's been really important with creating
these specialized courts that can deal with people
with different backgrounds, different challenges
and the like, and I think we need to create
community supports that reflect those differences.
And I always say that this population isn't a
monolithic group. You know, we have different
individuals, different experiences. Not everyone
has a substance use disorder, not everyone has a
chronic challenge in terms of a mental health
disorder. So we have to kind of meet people
where they are, do better with assessing what
their needs are and then connecting them to
appropriate services that can help them move
along and become stable.
That's a very good point. Timothy, what are we
looking at in terms of Vets that are coming through
the system and are there special needs that one
needs to be aware of?
Absolutely. I think the main thing is trauma. We
see most veterans have experienced some sort of
trauma either in combat or prior to combat, and
one of the things that is so important to treating
veterans is addressing that trauma. Until that
trauma is addressed they really can't move
forward. They can't start to work on the substance
abuse and things of that nature. A lot of veterans
use drugs and alcohol to cope with the effects of
the trauma so that needs to be addressed almost immediately.
Almost immediately but even before they reenter.
I think that's one of the things we need to be sure
that people understand is that reentry doesn't
start the day the person is released. It's really a
process and it needs to start while people are still
in prison or jail. I don't know what the
recommended timeframe is - it's probably
individualized but that we do need to be-as we
create these systems, they have to interact with
the prisons and the jails and start the work before
they're released.
Actually, I am in the Philadelphia prison system
every Monday and Friday with an organization
called resources for human development and I'm
part of their Healing AJAX Program where we go in
and we use the TREM model which is Trauma,
Recovery Empowerment Model so they're already
active in addressing their trauma before they even
get back on the street. So I'm glad to hear you say
that. We are doing that in Philadelphia and I
would love to see that spread all across the nation.
It's important for them to get engaged in
treatment before they even get out and start
working on it because if they do get out and they
haven't addressed it, bad things do happen; they
go back to their old ways.
But George, let me ask this. How realistic is it that
every single facility is going to have a system
where the inmates are assessed? Is that
something that we need to work towards?
Yes, it is. In Illinois, we are in a couple of
institutions right now. We have a program in
Sheraton and one is "Sweep" where we go in and
we do what's called an inner circle where we circle
up folks and have them to look at their behavior
thoughts and activities that led them in that
pathway. But every system needs to work on
having some type of in reach process where we go
in and touch and have some basic level of an
assessment to begin to identify what are some of
the presenting issues that he or she needs to work
on, and we're trying to do that back in Illinois to
make sure that we have some kind of way that
everyone gets touched at the point of entry.
There's an assessment done, there's a plan
mapped out so that that can get followed up.
Now, everyone may not get the individual
treatment services but they can begin to reflect on
some of the things that they need to address while
they're in the process of serving their particular
sentence. And the prison experience in and of
itself is traumatizing. That creates a traumatic kind
of experience as well to be separated from one's
family and isolated in a setting of that type, I
would think that that in and of itself is somewhat
traumatic to some extent and so we try to work
with those kinds of issues as well. I call it a process
of debriefing and re-briefing. How do we help
them to debrief from thinking, acting and
behaviors and then re-brief them as they think
about returning to their respective communities as well?
Roberta, from a national perspective, we just
heard the example of Illinois; how are we doing as
a nation and what other states are actually
engaged in the type of reforms that we need to see?
Absolutely. There's work being done on every
level of government. Many sheriffs across this
country have been charged with the task of
needing to figure out how they can best serve their
jail population, many of whom have mental health
disorders that have gone undiagnosed and
untreated. And sadly, many of these law
enforcement officials recognize the struggle that
they have and they're actually seeking out support
from the healthcare community to bring in
appropriate assessment tools and even
innovatively looking at private philanthropic
organizations to help support their ability to get
the kind of technical support that they need to set
up a system that can serve this high-need
population. On a state level it's also an issue
where there's a great movement to reduce the
prison populations, so many corrections officials
are really working on looking at not only ways that
they can reduce that population but how can they
make sure people have the support that they need
in the community that they're returning to. And,
of course, on the federal level, same thing has
been happening.
Very good and Timothy, from a perspective of the
Vets, are there advocates that are looking out for
Vets that are within the system to be able to
provide the special services?
Absolutely. Like I mentioned earlier, the Resources
for Human Development's Healing AJAX program really
does an incredible job of going behind the walls
and helping these veterans to prepare them for
release not only in there but they link them up to
services once they get out as well, so they're
accustomed to the group and it's really something special.
Well when we come back, I want to get back to see
what else they're doing. They're working directly
with the Vets in the institutions but externally how
are we working to really to move this issue forward.
We'll be right back.
[Music]
I initially got into recovery through the help of
peers. I really didn't know anything about
recovery and when I started to engage with people
who were living in recovery is when I actually saw
with my own two eyes that it was possible. I
actually ended up going to a Veteran's facility and
there was people who were just like me living with
the same struggles. Recovery means to me an
everyday process. When you're in recovery, you
live it day in and day out. Without my recovery I'm
not there for my wife, I'm not there for my
children, I'm not there for anybody. I'm not the
person that I should be if I'm not in recovery.
Being able to give back my recovery to other
people has been such a rewarding process. Every
day I wake up and I get to help others and it's one
of the most important things in my life. It's
absolutely a dream come true. People were there
for me in the beginning, and to be able to give that
back is something special for sure.
[Music]
It's very important to provide mental health
treatment and addictions treatment to individuals
as their reentering the community setting from
correctional institutions. We know that the
existence of untreated behavioral health
conditions and addictions often lead to recurrence
of the criminal activity that was involved and to
individuals not doing well. So treatment early is
very important. SAMHSA has a number of
programs that look at individuals reentering the
community and it's part of our mission to do what
we can, wherever we can to enhance the success
of individuals as their reentering the community
from correctional institutions. A detailed listing of
that is available on our website, but there are a
number of different programs that are oriented
towards successful reentry and we know that
successful reentry a lot of times involves obtaining
treatment for addictions as well as mental health
conditions.
My family and friends are always with me, no
matter where I may be. Sharing stories from home
helps me sustain my recovery from my mental and
substance use disorder. Join the voices for
Recovery: our families, our stories, our recovery!
For confidential information on mental and
substance use disorders including prevention and
treatment referral for you or someone you know,
call 1-800-662-HELP. Brought to you by the U.S.
Department of Health & Human Services.
Welcome back. So George, as we're looking at the
people that are coming back, particularly those
with a mental and substance use disorder who are
reentering communities, what are some examples
of community-based efforts specifically that
they're going to need to engage to?
Yes, good question. One of the things that we like
to do is that we have a process called Doable
Recovery Model that we like to also have a clinical
assessment so that we can figure out and then
map where is the exact service that's prescriptive
to that individual to receive. And part of our case
management model is that we manage and help
coach the individual to where they need to go but
then also we're there also to make sure that he or
she is getting the right dosage of services that they
need. In other words, sometimes it's very difficult
for one to acknowledge a mental health issue or
need to some extent and particularly on what
cultural implications may be there as well, it makes
it even more difficult sometimes. So we help
coach them to think about it and then to engage
them into an environment that is conducive for
them to feel a level of trust, that they can trust
where we make the referral that they can trust
exposing that particular issue of themselves in
community because remember, they have a
different whole concept about their lifestyle and as
they're thinking about making these changes and
so forth. So we want to make sure that they get
the right need, the right dosage of services, that
we get them to the right place and that we
establish the right relationship.
So the right units of services that they need.
Speaking of doses, let's talk about medication treatment.
I knew, I knew - I was ready!
That is one of the things that's really important if
people need medication that they have access to
that immediately so ideally people are started on
medication while they're still behind the walls and
that is continued and they are connected with a
prescriber and other supports whether they're
peer supports or counseling supports
immediately upon release so that they aren't
having to wait. So you don't want people to come
out of prison or jail and have been stabilized on
medications there and then have to go off they're
medications while they're on a waiting list or trying
to hook up with a prescriber. So that's one of the
things I think whether it's a case manager or a peer
support worker, however the system functions,
that you need to engage people in making sure
that they have access to those medications.
Have we moved far enough in terms of medication
treatment within the criminal justice system or are
there pockets where people need to still consider
setting up programs?
I think there are pockets where there's services
available or medications available and there's lots
of room for change. Would you say that?
I totally agree. Totally agree. This is, again, going
back to individual needs. I just want to pivot for a
quick second because as George talked about
dosage, I actually thought about it in terms of
service delivery. So you may have some people
that have gone through incarceration and come
out and have been connected to, you know, have a
rich resource of network and support in their
community and when we try to get people to
connect to other services, it's too much or too
little and that could be detrimental to their
reintegration process. So not every program suits
the person which is why, again, we need to make
sure that assessing and understanding the person's
whole, their whole makeup is reviewed because
that does affect the care that they reach out
because some people get where they don't want
to go to any programs because they feel that
they've been programmed out.
Yeah, Timothy, I see you nodding your head.
One of the things that I think is paramount in all of
this is peer support. Overdosing somebody with a
lot of stuff can be detrimental to them so peer
support, you know, we're the ones that are out
there every day with the people walking in the
trenches, we are the people that have been
through these things so we know what works. We
know how to regulate certain things and connect
certain things, and really everybody's recovery is
different. My recovery is different from the next
person, so on and so forth, so it's all about coming
up with what works for that individual and that's
where peer support comes in.
Talk to us about your recovery a little bit.
So my recovery-when I got back from Iraq after
the invasion in 2003, within four days I was
arrested for aggravated assault and I was sitting in
a jail cell. I was using drugs and alcohol to deal
with what I now know is PTSD. And being that I
was one of the first to go to Iraq, when I came back
there weren't the services that there are today, so
it wasn't until after a very, very long road, seven
arrests and almost a year of my life in prison, that I
found peer support. And something about peer
support that for a military person it brings the
camaraderie back in their lives. Finally they have a
new mission and that mission is recovery.
Was it peer support with Vets themselves that
were trained to be peer support specialists?
It was. It was a mixture of both I would say. But I
was finally put in a Philadelphia Veteran's Court
and when I looked to my left and my right, I was
surrounded by the people who were going through
the same things that I was going through. And also
the mentor aspect of it from Veterans and people
that have been through things. I work a lot with an
organization called Justice for Vets and they travel
across the nation training mentors and these
mentors are paramount to recovery. You don't
have to actually have been through some things to
be a mentor. You can be trained and Justice for
Vets will do that, so they're a big part of recovery.
We have a self-help group that's called
Winners' Circles and it's led by men and women
that also have had the similar experience that
coaches and support at a peer level our
constituents coming out of the system so that they
too can relate to that experience. But you're right,
they don't necessarily have to have the same
experience but have a commitment to helping
these individuals restore their lives. I like to call it
helping them to restore their citizenship, their self
citizenship, their citizenship within their families
and within their respective communities; how to
take their rightful places, and build that level of
relationship and trust I think is absolutely
paramount to having that experience, that they
have to have the right relationship and they have
to trust that that person have their self interest at
heart as they help them to think through and help
them to begin to change their thinking that leads
to changing their behavior. I commend you for
that work out there.
I also think we don't access family ties adequately.
Some people have really strong family support,
others don't, but many people do and I think that's
a huge part of some people's recovery and we
need to assess that and we need to engage it in a
supportive way. And I think that in many reentry
programs we don't do that enough.
Let's speak about now rural communities. I
suspect that most of these services are more
available within urban settings than rural
communities. So George, have you had experience
with rural communities and what are the
challenges there and how are we addressing them?
Absolutely. TASC is a statewide organization and
so we work in all the counties, 102 counties within
the state of Illinois, and we find that in our rural
counties that the problem is distance between
services. Sometimes services don't exist for 10, 15,
20, 30 miles where they can go in and get a
particular service and so one of the things we're
beginning to implement is using media, phones
and tablets and so forth and having check-in's to
find ways that we can have conversations to help
that person deal with their presenting issues to
some extent until he or she can make that journey
to get to where they need to get. And also it kind
of relates to healthcare as well. One of the things
that we do is we're enrolling all of our clients into
health coverage to make sure that they have some
type of substantive medical health plan so that
they can access services and some of the
physicians and some of the facilities are also using
TeleMed, TeleHealth and using media in ways of
communicating until we can have that one-on-one
kind of contact. So we find that to be extremely
useful out in our rural areas as well.
And for women, Kim, let's start with you.
I know you've run programs for women and are there
gender differences, and if so how do we approach
that challenge?
I think the biggest gender difference when you're
talking about offender reentry kinds of things is
that women are primary childcare-they are the
ones primarily responsible for childcare and so
they have children who are with other people,
whether they're involved with the child welfare
system or family caregivers, and that whole
process of reengaging with their children who may
have grown up quite a bit while in their absence
and they may have seen them very little. So I think
that is one of the major differences that you have
to consider when you're thinking about women and reentry.
Very good. We'll be right back.
[Music]
TASC stands for Treatment Alternatives for Safe
Communities. We, TASC have been around for 40+
years working at the intersection of the criminal
justice system and substance use treatment. Our
focus for all of that time has been on advocating
for alternatives from incarceration.
The whole thought process behind what we do has
to do with not only educating the system about
addiction but also the clients about what their
journey is going to be like. We know from years and
years of trying to lock people away and solve their problem
that that doesn't work. So there has to be a different
approach to someone who has a substance use disorder.
Law enforcement and prosecution are emerging as
really significant diversion points in the
justice system that will ultimately shrink the
number of people going into jails, prisons, etc.
TASC's role is to ensure that people get access to care in
the community rather than in the criminal justice system.
We have gotten a lot of positive response from all
sides of the bench with regard to diversion
programs and having a system and a structure by
which to triage and understand who these people
are and divert them to the appropriate program or services.
Here in Illinois, TASC partners with over 250
licensed substance abuse and mental health
treatment programs, we work with 4-500 recovery
support organizations, and they are critical to
sustaining recovery for the folks we are working with.
It's very important for someone just to reach out
and hold your hand and tell you you're gonna
make it through this, you're gonna be alright.
We have basically four major service delivery units.
One is the alternatives to incarceration where we are
advocates in court for people to get care in the
community as opposed to going to prison or jail.
We have our re-entry work that we do with the
department of corrections and that's for people who
participate in substance abuse treatment in the
institution. We have our child welfare programs
where we are working with families who have lost custody
of their kids because of a substance use disorder.
We also work in the juvenile justice system and do
work with adolescents with substance use and
mental health disorders and where we had 1800
youth in state corrections for juveniles,
we're now down to around 400.
[Music]
It takes many hands to build a healthy life.
Recovery from mental and substance use disorders
is possible with the support of my community. Join
the voices for recovery: visible, vocal, valuable!
For confidential information on mental and
substance use disorders including prevention and
treatment referral for you or someone you know,
call 1-800-662-HELP. Brought to you by the U.S.
Department of Health & Human Services.
Welcome back. So, Roberta, you wanted to add
something to the last question that I had on women.
Absolutely, yes. First, I want us to think about the
fact that the criminal justice system wasn't
developed with the idea of putting women in these
systems, and sadly many of the correctional
institutions, they haven't been set up to serve the
needs of women. So that's one. And then two,
because of the huge responsibilities that many
women have before going in, the trauma that they
experienced before going in, everything is
magnified in a way that men may not experience.
And the other thing that I notice is that many
women have burned bridges with their families
depending on what that journey has been that
they've traveled, especially if they have had to
battle with substance use disorders and mental
health disorders so their visits are a little different,
their ties to their families are different and a lot of
the expectations are different. In terms of what
Kim talked about, they're expected to get their
children back as soon as they get back and those
expectations are so grand that it affects everything
in that whole reintegration process.
Because oftentimes they do need a transition
within the transition with their children exclusively
and some of them may need even to be taught
how to be a good mother.
And that whole family reunification, particularly if
the kids have only seen their moms-I mean
sometime they haven't seen them-it's too far
away-and then sometimes they've seen them on
visits maybe once a week or something and so
thinking about how you reengage, so even if you
have the skills to start with, your child is in a very
different place from when you left and so it's very
hard to do that whole reengagement process and
take on that responsibility while you're also
struggling with all these other issues that we're
talking about.
Speaking of struggling, Timothy, let's really take a
look at the housing needs of individuals that are
coming back. How challenging is it for Vets and for
others, but for Vets in particular?
It's extremely hard to get a veteran into housing.
As we all know, there's a ton of people out there
who need housing and it's quite the challenge
because a lot of times the beds are full, there's a
constant rotation of people coming in and out of
these programs. That's where you lose people.
You lose them back to the streets. When they
don't have a roof over their head and they don't
have a bed to sleep in at night, that's when things
go wrong. So it is absolutely important to in my
opinion open more programs, build more housing
programs, and get these people stable in a clean,
healthy, happy environment. You have to take a
holistic approach and I think it starts with housing.
And we know that there are, Kim alternatives and
George... There are alternatives in terms of
housing settings such as the Oxford House and
other transitional housing for individuals that have
a substance use disorder. How are they connected
to the programs such as TASC and are there an
option or do family members step in? And
oftentimes family members may not want this
person to come back to their nucleus of the family?
Yes, yes. As a matter of fact, that happens quite
often where the person can't return to their family
environment to some extent. One of the things I
think is extremely critical is having honest
conversation about the housing, that we know that
there's an extreme long waiting list to get folks
into alternative housing, halfway housing, three-
quarter housing, Oxford houses and so forth. But I
think that if the individual has to return to their
family, there has to be a serious conversation with
the family to go in there, to have a conversation to
see what are some of the needs of the family
members, but to also have a conversation that
talks about the fact that George, if it's George,
needs some serious support, not to be enabled,
not to be kind of minimized in terms of what are
my responsibilities, and so in our clinical
assessment process we have a real serious
conversation and do a real critical analysis of what
those implications are, can we meet with the
family and have that conversation, can we prep
that person? That's where the doable reentry
model and the doable recovery come in, that they
have to be able to understand that they have to
maintain their goal regardless of the challenges.
But I think a serious conversation about the family
has to take place and we have to go in there and
figure out what are some of the needs of the
family because when you go away under those
circumstances, there are some issues there.
Ivette, can I add?
Certainly, go ahead.
The other issue I think we need to think about and
talk about, many of these individuals are low
income families and really rely on supportive
housing, network subsidized housing, federally
subsidized, state subsidized housing and one of the
greatest challenges faced by this population are
criminal record restrictions that are imposed and
we see that there are not many protections that
people have and opportunities that people have to
get housing. For public and federally subsidized
housing or private housing, often they have to
answer questions about their history and be
prepared to talk about it; also pay for background
checks that have to be done. So navigating those
barriers and those challenges and the fact that
there are very few-I mean the need for low
income housing is so great across the country, and
the lack of affordable housing is one of the biggest
challenges faced by people that have somewhat
gotten stable in the community and simply need to
have their own place and their own space but can't get it.
And I'm glad that you mentioned affordable
because that assumes, George, that they have jobs
and how do we get them into jobs?
Some kind of income.
Some kind of legal income. One of the things that,
again, I like to have is honest conversations, that
there's challenges in terms of jobs and that where
can we get you in where you can fit in. It may not
be the job that you want but it might be the job
that you need right now and so can we have that
honest conversation and can you accept that
reality. And sometimes there are some
opportunities to get someone into a living wage,
either having some type of income but having a
real serious honest conversation about the
challenges about that because there are serious
challenges about work in this country as a whole
and as we talk about someone with a criminal
background, that creates other issues as well,
particularly if it's criminal background as well as
drugs or alcohol implications also. So we have an
honest conversation and look for partners, and
there are some partners out there that can get
people placed very successfully, but the person has
to be willing to get in where they can fit in right
now as they work towards their higher goals in
terms of employment.
And Timothy, let's talk about some of the training
programs that may be in place for Vets in order for
them to get the training to be able to then become
more independent.
Okay, so a lot of veterans do have the
Montgomery GI Bill where they could utilize it to
go to college. There's also vocational
rehabilitation where they can go to trade schools
and stuff like that and use that money, barring that
they're eligible. The problem is they're not always
eligible for that.
And what would keep them from being eligible?
A dishonorable discharge even though they served.
We see a lot of veterans who have done multiple
tours in Iraq or Afghanistan and they may have
committed a crime that's directly related to them
living with mental health issues such as PTSD or
traumatic brain injury and then they lose their
honorable discharge and they're not eligible for
these programs. And quite frankly, it's a disgrace.
Is there a reconsideration of people taking a look
at that area?
They have done a better job of kind of reevaluating
and you can apply for a discharge upgrade but I
think the process-
That's what I thought I read in the news recently.
In my opinion the process needs to get better and
it needs to get faster because with the opioid
epidemic we're losing people at a rapid rate and a
lot of these people are being addicted to pain
killers because of injuries that happened in
combat. A lot of work needs to be done.
Very good. Very quickly, Kim, what programs does
SAMHSA have in terms of reentering individuals
that are coming back into the community?
The primary program that we have is we have a
grant program, offender reentry program, that is
money that goes to communities to help them set
up these systems of care to help people reenter.
So that's one thing. We also have a number of
tools and information resources on our website
and people should just go to the website and do a
search term on offender reentry.
Very good. Well when we come back, we will be
talking a little more about the resources that are
within the community to help individuals reenter.
We'll be right back.
[Music]
I'm a recovering heroin addict for 20 years I was in
my addiction and I first came to TASC through the
criminal justice system, yes, getting arrested,
getting probation. I came into TASC, I had a TASC
Recovery Coach, her name was Ada Villanueva. And she
has been a huge part of my life, my success, my recovery.
The majority of offenders who are released from
prison go right back to the same communities that
they lived in before they got in trouble. So we
know that reentry is necessary for them to make a
healthy transition and also to kind of prepare that
community for them to come home.
I think it was critical to me to have the support network
I had. I was a fish out of water. Here I am coming
home from doing a 12 year sentence, here I am
basically on an island because I know nobody and
yet I had individuals from TASC who said, "Here's our
phone number, here's what we do, don't be a
stranger, we're here to help you."
Treatment centers, transitional centers,
transitional shelters, recovery centers, all of that
is huge for a person coming out of the criminal
justice system.
The biggest thing that stands out to me is that
people didn't quit on me. Long after I quit on
myself I had individuals from TASC at my door
saying, "OK we understand where you've been, let's
focus on what we need to do to move forward."
And support like that is definitely a huge part of
their recovery and their success, I don't know, if
these programs didn't exist or wasn't available to
me I wouldn't be standing where I'm at today, I wouldn't.
[Music]
Trauma is a pretty common experience for people
who have been involved in the criminal justice
system, if you think even just the act of getting
arrested and how traumatic that can be for many
people, but then the whole experience of being in
jail or prison and the kind of environment that
creates and depending on the length of time that
someone has been there, reentry can be a
traumatic experience in of itself, the world has
changed. We've really started to look at reentry as
a process and it used to be that that process
started when you were released, right? You got
released, you did the reentry stuff. But what
we know now is you can't start that process the
day of release, it has to start behind the walls and
be a process. So we're talking about things now
like starting people on medication while they're
still behind the walls and then connecting them
with whether it's case management, or whether
it's therapists or whatever the services that they
need. One of SAMHSA's strategic initiatives for the
past 6 years has been trauma and justice. So we
have out of that initiative we have created a lot of
activity around both those two issues - trauma
and justice. A couple that CSAT specifically has
been involved with is we have the GAINS Center
which is a technical assistance center with a lot of
information, a lot of tools and support for
providers working around the criminal justice
system. And of course we have TIP 57, I know
many people have the whole set of 60 tips, TIP 57
is about trauma informed care which includes
information about trauma in the criminal justice
system specifically.
[Music]
For more information on National Recovery
Month, to find out how to get involved or to locate
an event near you. Visit the Recovery Month
website at Recoverymonth.gov
[Music]
Welcome back. Timothy, I'm gonna start with you.
Tell us if there are Vets that are watching and they
have had contact with the criminal justice system
and really are looking to get some help, where
would they go?
I think one of the most important things that we're
doing in Pennsylvania is the Pathways to Pardons
Movement where they can apply for a pardon and
they're doing a really good job in the state of
Pennsylvania as far as speeding that process up.
You know, that ugly word that's always attached,
stigma, that we have to get rid of is always there,
and the Pathways to Pardons program-I was
actually at an event recently with Lieutenant
Governor Stack from Pennsylvania and he's out
there every day. He's leading the way. He really
wants people to have a second chance and I think more
people need to do the same thing.
But nationally they can also find resources?
Absolutely, yes.
George, in terms of the programs that you may
have, are there others modeling some of the
efforts? I know that TASC is a leader in the
criminal justice area and what have you found on a
national scale that really responds well to these needs?
Thank you, you know, when we did the Second
Chance Act, one of the entities that was created,
the Council of State Government has a listing of
most all of the reentry criminal justice type
services around the country. So I think that is a
good national resource. TASC has a number of
national TASC-like programs around the country
that operate in various states that have similar
kinds of services such as the service that we have.
Case management is one of the core components.
Some of the modeling of clinical case management
as well as doable recovery services and so forth.
So I think that if the individual, family and friends
will do a search, they can find within their
respective communities services that's there.
There's quite a few services out there. Now, how
one picks and choose the right service, that's
where we come in to help them to navigate, to
help educate them, help them to navigate and
then help them to understand how they need to
negotiate services as they think about making
changes in their lives to take their rightful places in
their respective community. So there's a wealth of
services. It's just a matter of being able to locate
them and pinpoint them.
But if there's communities out there that are really
on the brink of thinking of establishing a program
for reentry in their community, what model would
you say is the first one that they need to take a
look at and the first one that they need to adopt?
I would recommend Clinical Case Management.
They need a case management model and then a
peer-based service as well. Clinical Case
Management, that's like coaching, that's like
reentry coaching services that have a specific set of
principles that one would have to incorporate to
make sure that the basic needs foundationally are
being provided and then having someone that they
can coach them through the process through their
peer-led kinds of services as well. And there's a lot
of models and services out there that kind of have
that baseline clinical case management to help
someone through the process.
Very good. Roberta, talk to us about the HIRE Program.
Absolutely. So we created the HIRE Network
because at the time in early 2000....
Tell me again what that stands for.
Helping Individuals with criminal records Reenter
through Employment. And what we had found
was employment was the primary need that
people came to us looking for help to get, and we
realized in late 1990's, early 2000's, that people
didn't really know to find resources within their
community. They didn't know what agencies to
look to for employment support or the community
based programs that they could reach out to. So
we set out to create this national network and a
web portal that has a resources and assistance
page that documents all of the relevant state
agencies a person might need to connect to such
as the Department of Labor, their local
Department of Labor, that documents how to get
to the workforce agencies, the one-stop centers in
their community, the State Repository, the state
agency that maintains criminal records, how to get
their rap sheet review those records in preparation
for employment, and then a whole listing of
service providers in their community that provides
employment support. So we really set out-and
this is something that we maintain to this day.
We've had over 15 million visitors to our site and
people that are in the federal prisons has looked to
this as a resource because we've documented for
all 50 states and the District of Columbia various
support organizations within those communities
that could provide employment support, training,
coaching, job placement, all of it that we
document and update year to year. And so it's
important that people have some place that they
can at least start. And I have to say with
employment people typically need to rely on an
intermediary for support because there's so much
when talking about the trauma that we've talked
about here. There's much trauma before and
during incarceration. People have a lot that they
have to work through to become job ready and so
we need to make sure that people are ready to be
employed so that they can stay employed and they
need to receive support services in order to do that.
Very good. Thank you. Well, we've come to the
point where I'm going to let everyone give me
their final thoughts, and I hope somebody speaks
to-I know you mentioned stigma. We're trying to
change that around and call it discriminatory
behaviors and discriminatory attitudes towards
those in recovery or in need of recovery, and I
hope one of you mentions this during your last
wrap-up. So I'm going to start with Kim for last thoughts.
So we have been trying to use language around
discrimination as opposed to stigma because
stigma is really about the individual, how I'm
perceived, and really what we want to focus on is
how people treat the individual who's in recovery,
right. So we have been talking more about the
more active verb discrimination or to discriminate.
The last thing I actually want to throw in here is
we've been talking about Second Chance Act and
about reentry but when we think about criminal
justice reform, there's a whole continuum from
community policing and engaging young people
and pro-social behavior all the way through drug
courts, and reentry is kind of the last phase of that
and so we just really need to think about this in the
context of that whole continuum.
Very good. George.
Thank you. We are working on, from the very
front end, a model called No Entry to where we're
doing in services and reentry and how can we help
impaired public opinion about the plight and the
challenges men and women coming out of the
criminal justice system faces and to ask them to
give them a chance. And as the individual takes an
honest assessment of his or her needs and make
that personal commitment to changing their lives, I
want everyone to know individually, family, as well
as community, there's help available if you seek it
and ask it and look for it in the way that you know
that you need to make those changes and that
stigma can paralyze you sometimes but you have
to be honest about the things you need to do to
make some changes in your life and we're pushing
the public to change their opinion how they're
responding to individuals coming out of the system.
Very good and you used that word again, stigma. Roberta.
Yes. One way I know that we will be able to
address stigma and address the perception that
people have of people with substance use histories
and mental health disorders and histories is I'm
gonna take a phrase from a former colleague of
mine at Just Leadership USA. People closest to the
problem are closest to the solution. So any change
that we make in our society and our communities
are going to have to be led by people who have
walked the walk and have come through on the
other side because it's their lives that reflects
where we want to go. And it takes that to really
have an impact and change on communities across
this country.
Very good, Roberta. Timothy.
So it comes down to education I believe.
Educating the community, educating families like
George mentioned earlier, educating everybody. I
think we can reach people and turn that
discrimination around. It's not gonna happen
overnight. It takes everybody to do it together and
it's a work in progress. We're getting there. One
thing that I always like to say especially through
peer support is the-you know, a lot of people out
there don't have any hope so sometimes they
need to borrow some hope and that's what we
need people in the community to do, to be hope
lenders, to get these people back on their feet and
show them that recovery is possible and
everything's gonna be alright. Together we can do
that for sure.
And I think also in your case that Vets really do
need an extra helping hand because their
problems are a lot more complex than the ones of
perhaps other sectors in society.
Sure. We just ran the two longest wars in U.S.
history side by side, and less than 1% of the United
States people actually serve in the military today
so that's something to think about.
It's a challenge for sure.
Thank you. I want to thank the panel today and I
want to remind our audience that September is
National Recovery Month and we encourage you
to go to recoverymonth.gov to look at all the
resources that you can find to create events, bring
your family to events and participate in this very
important observance. It is something that can
help you not only deal with the issues that we have
talked about here today, but really let the broader
community know about what the needs are.
We want to thank you for being here.
It's been a great show. Thank you.
[Music]
To watch this program or other programs in the
Road to Recovery series, visit the website at
recoverymonth.gov.
[Music]
For those with a mental or substance use disorder
recovery starts when you ask for help.
Join the voices for recovery. Speak up. Reach out.
For information on mental and substance use disorders
including prevention and treatment referral, call
1-800-662-HELP. Brought to you by the U.S. Department
of Health and Human Services.
[Music]
Every September, National Recovery Month
provides an opportunity for communities like yours
to raise awareness of mental and substance use
disorders, to highlight the effectiveness of
prevention, treatment and recovery services, and
show that people can and do recover. In order to
help you plan events and activities in
commemoration of this year's Recovery Month
observance, the free online Recovery Month kit
offers ideas, materials, and tools for planning,
organizing, and realizing an event or outreach
campaign that matches your goals and resources.
To obtain an electronic copy of this year's
Recovery Month kit and access other free
publications and materials on prevention,
recovery, and treatment services, visit the
Recovery Month website at recoverymonth.gov,
or call 1-800-662-HELP.
[Music]
