Funding Awarded for St. Johns County Behavioral Health Planning Project

ST AUGUSTINE, Fla. - Nov. 21, 2016 - PRLog -- Funding Awarded for St. Johns County Behavioral Health Planning Project

St. Augustine, FL – Stewart-Marchman-Act Behavioral (SMA), in partnership with EPIC Behavioral Healthcare and the Health Planning Council of Northeast Florida (HPCNEF) has been awarded a one-year assessment and planning grant from the Florida Department of Children and Families under the Criminal Justice, Mental Health and Substance Abuse Reinvestment (CJMHSA) Grant program, successful in large part due to the advocacy of the St. John's County Behavioral Health Consortium.    The $50,223 grant award was matched by in-kind commitments from SMA, EPIC, HPCNEF, Flagler Hospital, St. Augustine Police Department, St. Augustine Beach Police Department, St. Johns County Health and Human Services, St. Johns County Sheriff's Office, and the St. Johns chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness.

The goal of the CJMHSA grant program is to provide funding to counties to plan for initiatives that increase public safety, avert increased spending on criminal and juvenile justice systems, and improve the accessibility and effectiveness of treatment services for adults and juveniles who have a mental illness, substance abuse disorders, or co-occurring mental health and substance abuse disorders, who are in, or at risk of entering, the criminal or juvenile justice systems.

After the year-long assessment and planning project, St. Johns County will be eligible to apply for funding to implement strategies included in their strategic plan for an additional three years.

Why This Project is Important

On any given day, approximately 2 of every 3 individuals incarcerated at the St. Johns County Detention Center has a diagnosable behavioral health condition.  Nearly one third of the jail population is experiencing a severe mental illness and another third is an abuser or dependent upon alcohol and/or an illicit drug.  Some inmates are "dually diagnosed" with both a severe mental illness and a drug dependence.  Planning grant funds will assist the community, behavioral health providers and justice systems to develop strategies to identify and effectively address the behavioral health needs of adults involved in the criminal justice system. The yearlong planning process will lead to development of a grant application next year to implement the strategies that emerge from planning.    St. Johns County has been successful in developing new behavioral health resources in recent years; this project will help define the community's next steps in addressing mental illness and addiction.

Key Project Components

The assessment and planning project will include several key components, including:

• The formation of a Planning Committee to lead the project activities
• Monthly reports to St. Johns County's Public Safety Coordinating Council
• Key Leader interviews and consumer focus groups to collect experiential input into the process
• Data collection to clearly understand the behavioral health care needs of criminally involved adults and to assess the current capacity of the service system
• A Sequential Intercept Mapping exercise to analyze the current criminal justice and behavioral health systems in St. Johns County
• Strategic Planning to develop proposed systemic and process improvements, capacity expansion, collaboration and partnerships

How You Can Get Involved

Recruitment of Planning Committee members and data collection activities are anticipated to begin in the next two months.  Please contact Sandi Jackson, SMA's Vice President for St. Johns County Services at (904) 209-6222 or sjackson@smabehavioral.org, or  Brandon Colee,  Epic's Operation Manager at (904) 829-2273 or bcolee@epicbh.org  for additional information  and volunteer opportunities.