CM Brooks-Powers on mental health services for formerly incarcerated

Okay, we've also been joined by Council Members Brooks-Powers and Gutierrez, and Council Member Brooks-Powers has questions.

Thank you, Chairs, and thank you for the testimony.

How does DOHMH target mental health services for formerly incarcerated individuals?

In particular, what strategies has the agency found to be effective in reducing recidivism?

And how is the agency prioritizing these strategies and working with the Department of Corrections, CHS, and other agencies to ensure we are able to reduce the incarcerated population in light of the closure of Rikers Island?

Yeah, thank you for that question, Councilmember.

And, you know, it's incredibly important that we get this right for this impacted population.

From our standpoint, it's not only important to treat these individuals with dignity, but it's also important to provide these resources to break the cycle of reincarceration.

And recidivism.

Let me hand it over to Dr.

Petit to share a little bit more on this.

Yeah, thank you for that question.

So certainly this is a critically important population that we want to make sure that we're offering the full array of services across the continuum.

So within the division, there is a bureau specifically focused on initiatives that are aimed at addressing some of these concerns through a health justice network and a lot of interagency collaboration.

We do actually also have what I consider a really remarkable program.

There's a co-response team, which is pairing clinicians with police officers to be able to address some of the higher acuity calls that come in and make sure that when there is

an individual who's in crisis who might have justice involvement or level of...

violence or agitation that we're addressing in a clinically specific manner.

So it's been incredibly successful in terms of really making sure that folks aren't going back into jail.

And like those, there are multiple programs that we either support or are part of that really are addressing some of the issues around diversion and reentry into the community.

Thank you.