Monday Plenary Segment: CARE Courts
Deputy Secretary Stephanie Welch will be presenting on recent State priorities and investments in behavioral health programs, including implementation of the CARE Act. The CARE Act creates a new pathway to deliver critical behavioral health services, housing, and other support for Californians with schizophrenia spectrum or other psychotic disorders.
Presenter
Stephanie Welch is the Deputy Secretary of Behavioral Health for the California Health and Human Services (CalHHS) Agency. Secretary Welch has over two decades of experience in behavioral health policy, program administration, evaluation, and advocacy at both the state and county level, working at organizations such as the California Mental Health Services Authority (CalMHSA), the County Behavioral Health Directors Association (CBHDA) and the California Council of Community Behavioral Health Agencies (CBHA). She holds an MSW from the University of Southern California and a BA in Sociology from the University of California, Davis.
Overview of the CalAIM Justice-Involved Initiative
People who are now, or have spent time, in jails, youth correctional facilities, or prisons are at higher risk for injury and death than the general public and the point of release from a correctional facility is an especially vulnerable time for these individuals. California is taking significant steps to address poor health outcomes among justice-involved individuals through its California Advancing and Innovating Medi-Cal (CalAIM) Justice-Involved Initiative, which includes establishing a pre-release Medi-Cal enrollment processes, providing targeted Medi-Cal services to individuals while they are incarcerated immediately prior to their release, and ensuring continuity of coverage and services after incarceration as part of re-entry planning. This workshop will provide an overview of the following CalAIM Justice-Involved Initiatives:
- Pre-release Medi-Cal application mandate and unlimited suspension policy;
- Pre-release services, including reentry planning; and
- Providing Access and Transforming Health Initiative (PATH) funding opportunity for pre-release Medi-Cal application process and pre-release services.
Presenters
Autumn Boylan, M.P.H., is the Deputy Director of the Office of Strategic Partnerships at the California Department of Health Care Services (DHCS). In this role, Ms. Boylan serves as a key contributor in the formulation of policy to achieve the mission of DHCS. She provides strategic direction to and leads department-wide initiatives, such as the Children and Youth Behavioral Health Initiative (CYBHI) and the CalAIM Justice-Involved Initiatives.
Sydney Armendariz is the Chief of the Justice Initiatives Branch at the Department of Health Care Services, where she is responsible for leading the expansion of Medi-Cal services to justice-involved individuals. Ms. Armendariz has more than 10 years serving in the public sector, including policy work in health administration, mental health, and social services. Previously, she served as the Corrections-Workforce Partnership Manager at the California Workforce Development Board, and as a policy advisory for Medi-Cal benefits at the Department of Health Care Services. She has a Masters in Organizational Leadership from Saint Mary’s University of Minnesota, and a Bachelor of Science in Psychobiology, including a minor in African/African-American Studies, from the University of California, Davis.
County Learning Collaboratives to Support Implementation of MAT in Jails and Drug Courts
More than ever before Collaborative Courts are positioned to have positive impact on some of the most marginalized and vulnerable persons in our country - those with opioid use disorder and justice system involvement. However, despite California county progress in establishing drug courts - and the promise of improved outcomes they bring, including reduction in recidivism - and billions of dollars in state and federal funding - the national and state death rate due to opioid overdose continues to rise. Health Management Associates (HMA) is contracted with California Department of Health Care Services for the MAT in Jails and Drug Courts Learning Collaborative, funded by the CA state legislature. For the past three-plus years HMA has been leading a learning collaborative with 37 California counties supporting implementation of MAT in county jails, drug courts and the county service delivery system. To date almost 32,000 people have accessed MAT while incarcerated in participating county jails from an initial baseline of 25. This session will describe the evidence-base and promising practices for successful implementation of MAT in county justice systems and provide information about how Collaborative Courts and their partners can participate in the continuing county learning collaborative.
Presenter
Bren Manaugh, LCSW-S, CPHQ, CCTS, is a clinician, healthcare leader, and specialist in organizational and systems transformation with more than twenty-five years of experience in clinical services and operations. As a Principal at Health Management Associates (HMA) she directs HMA's MAT in Jails and Drug Courts project under contract with California DHCS as well as projects in Illinois and Alaska supporting implementation of MAT in county jails and prisons. To date at HMA she has supported more than 50 jails and counties in 16 states with MAT implementation.
From a BJA Peer Reviewer's POV: How to think like a Grant Reader
This interactive session presents Do’s and Don’ts for effective proposal writing. Participants will experience the perspective of a professional grant reviewer. How to tackle the Request for Proposal, who to involve in the grant writing process, mining data to make a point and critiquing their grant application as it is read by the funder are addressed. Participants are welcome to bring samples of their own grant applications to this session. Participants will be introduced to federal and state grants and funding sources including CARE Courts, Cal AIM, US DOJ Byrne State Crisis Intervention funding, and BJA grants.
Presenters
Dianne Marshall facilitated the planning, implementation and administration of the adult and juvenile drug courts, and a mental health court in Mendocino County, California. During her time with those treatment courts, the lives of 628 juveniles and adults experiencing substance abuse, mental illness, unemployment, risk of suicide, post-traumatic stress, and family poverty were impacted.
Ms. Marshall was a co-founder of the California Collaborative Court Coordinators Work Group that began meetings in 2000. For a number of years, California was the only state in the United States to have such a Work Group meeting regularly, tackling the challenges of integrating innovative solutions into criminal justice practices.
Martha Wright is Manager of Criminal Justice Services Programs and came to the Judicial Council in 2001 after spending several years working as a proposal development consultant to community-based non-profits and government agencies. Ms. Wright oversees a portfolio of criminal justice projects including fines and fees reform, collaborative courts and pretrial programs. Before coming to CJS she was responsible for creating the California JusticeCorps program, a unique AmeriCorps funded project that recruits and trains university students to work as assistants in court- based legal access self-help centers. Ms. Wright has a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science from the University of California at Davis and a Master’s degree in Public Administration from Sonoma State University.
