Behavioral Health Services for Criminal Justice-Involved Populations
Part 1: Understanding the Unique Needs of Diverse Populations
Josh Esrick, MPP, and Lauren Pappacena, MSW

March 7, 2023, 1:00pm-2:30pm EST

COURSE DESCRIPTION

This webinar will provide an introduction on criminal justice-involved populations for behavioral health professionals. It will overview the various populations within the criminal justice system and their needs across the behavioral health continuum of care, including lack of access to services while incarcerated and lack of case management during re-entry. It will also discuss how behavioral health professionals should consider risk versus need level and justice system stages when deploying services. Lastly, the webinar will discuss the unique substance use, overdose, and suicide risks associated with justice system-involvement, particularly at the point of community re-entry for incarcerated populations.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

• Explain the need for behavioral health services among criminal justice-involved populations
• Define the risk-need responsivity model, describe its use in determining treatment needs, and recognize how it can be adapted to assessing prevention needs
• Identify the intercept points where individuals encounter the justice system and can receive services
• Describe the unique risks associated with justice system involvement

PRESENTERS

Josh Esrick, MPP is a Senior Policy Analyst with Carnevale Associates. Josh has extensive experience in substance use prevention; researching, writing, and presenting on best practice and knowledge development publications, briefs, and reference guides; and developing and providing T/TA to numerous organizations. He developed numerous SAMHSA Center for the Application of Prevention Technologies’ (CAPT) products on strategies to prevent opioid misuse and overdose, risk and protective factors for substance use, youth substance use prevention strategies, youth substance use trends, emerging substance use trends, the potential regulations surrounding marijuana legalization, as well as numerous other topics.
Lauren Pappacena, MSW is a Research Associate with Carnevale Associates. Lauren has a background in criminal justice and juvenile justice research specifically as it relates to evidence-based programs and practices spanning criminal justice topics, including corrections, law enforcement, reentry, and courts. Currently, she assists with training evaluations for NADCP and the PTTC, where she brings her experience with quantitative and qualitative analysis and data visualization. With a strong interest in policy analysis, research translation, data collection, and analytic writing, Ms. Pappacena is published in the Journal of Human Rights and Social Work for her analysis of national early-release laws.