NH Mental Health and Drug Courts: Treatment instead of Jail Time

Presenters:

Shelly Golden, Coordinator, Grafton County Mental Health Court
Ebony Martin, Certified Peer Support Specialist
Hon. Tina Nadeau, Chief Justice, NH Superior Court – Presentation Slides
Alex Casale, Statewide Drug Offender Program Coordinator – Presentation Slides

NH Mental Health Court Programs Contact List

Transcript

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Michelle Wagner, NAMI NH (she/her): Good afternoon, folks. We’re just letting people get into the zoom room.

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Michelle Wagner, NAMI NH (she/her): I am Michelle Wagner, and I work with NAMI, New Hampshire, on the First Episode Psychosis Early Serious Mental Illness Initiative. We thank you for joining us for today’s Webinar, which is titled New Hampshire Mental Health and Drug Courts, Treatment Instead of Jail Time.

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Michelle Wagner, NAMI NH (she/her): This presentation is being recorded, and you’ll be able to find it on the education page of onwardNH.org. In the next couple of days, you’re going to receive a follow up email with links to both an evaluation and the recording.

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Michelle Wagner, NAMI NH (she/her): This is a Zoom Webinar. So, your camera and microphone are off the question-and-answer part is working. So, please enter any questions you have there. My colleague Kimberly. So Mariva is with us, and she will help field those questions.

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Michelle Wagner, NAMI NH (she/her): We have a wonderful panel today. So, now I’m going to turn it over to NAMI new councilors, executive Director Susan Sterns, to do the introductions, Susan.

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Susan Stearns, NAMI NH (she/her): Great thanks, Michelle.

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Susan Stearns, NAMI NH (she/her): And, Good afternoon, everyone. I will keep these introductions brief, because we have a fabulous panel that you all want to hear from. We do have more extensive bios from some of our panelists, and we’ll make sure those are posted along with the recording of this webinar, so you can read them there. Read them in their entirety.

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Susan Stearns, NAMI NH (she/her): First, it is my great pleasure to introduce Chief Justice Tina Nadeau, of the . New Hampshire Superior Court.

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Susan Stearns, NAMI NH (she/her): Tina Nadeau was appointed Associate Justice to the New Hampshire Superior Court in 1996, and then in 2011 was appointed Chief Justice of the Superior Court.

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Susan Stearns, NAMI NH (she/her): Justice Nadeau has a host of well-deserved honors and recognitions that you can read about later, but most importantly.

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Susan Stearns, NAMI NH (she/her): she has been a real leader here in our State. Indeed, beginning in 2006, she spearheaded the effort to open a drug court in Rockingham County Superior Court, and presided as the as the drug court judge. From there she went on to be a driving force in making sure that drug courts were accessible for all granite status nearly throughout our entire state.

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Susan Stearns, NAMI NH (she/her): just thanks to her and her colleagues, that we have seen such tremendous transformational change in our courts

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Susan Stearns, NAMI NH (she/her): along with Chief Justice Nadeau. Today we have Alex Casale, someone I’ve had the pleasure of knowing for a number of years.

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Susan Stearns, NAMI NH (she/her): Alex was appointed as State Coordinator for the specialty courts in New Hampshire, by Chief Justice Nadeau in 2013, on what he describes as a volunteer basis. So, we all know if you want to get anything done, give Alex a call.

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Susan Stearns, NAMI NH (she/her): And he was also quite that time coordinating the drug court in 2016, he officially became the first State coordinator for New Hampshire, overseeing all of the States Drug Courts, Mental Health Courts, and Veteran Sports.

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Susan Stearns, NAMI NH (she/her): Along with Alex. Today we have many very different colleagues, Charlie Golden, Coordinator of the Grafton County Mental Health Court.

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Susan Stearns, NAMI NH (she/her): I’ve had the pleasure of knowing shelly for a few years. We, we, were children when we started this work, and what she brings to her role is an enormous amount of experience, working with families from very diverse backgrounds, and she has been a leader here in our state, around Mental Health Courts, and indeed facilitator for our state, wide Mental Health Core Coordinators.

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Susan Stearns, NAMI NH (she/her): And then finally, but certainly not least, we have Ebony Martin with us. I’ve also known Ebony for a number of years. She is a certified peer support specialist. I first came to know her when she began doing that work as part of the Mental Health Court community connections out of Hillsborough County North

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Susan Stearns, NAMI NH (she/her): So, really through that we have such a diverse panel to bring to you today, with these varied experiences, all working to indeed ensure truly equal access to justice for all of our loved ones here in the Granite State.

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Susan Stearns, NAMI NH (she/her): Thank you all for being here.

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Michelle Wagner, NAMI NH (she/her): Thank you, Susan, and with that we are going to turn it over to judge. Now she’s

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Michelle Wagner, NAMI NH (she/her): going to tell us about Mental Health and Drug Courts.

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Hon. Tina Nadeau: Excellent, thank you, Michelle, and thank you, Susan. I’m going to first try and share my screen. So hopefully, I will do that right? Okay, and give me 1 second to

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Hon. Tina Nadeau: get it into slide mode.

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Hon. Tina Nadeau: it’s, it will happen.

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Hon. Tina Nadeau: Just need to move this.

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Hon. Tina Nadeau: There we go. Whoops. No.

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Hon. Tina Nadeau: Okay.

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Hon. Tina Nadeau: Slide show from the beginning.

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Hon. Tina Nadeau: There we go, all right. So finally got it up. So, welcome everybody. I’m so glad to be here today. It really is a pleasure to talk to community leaders and people who are interested in what we’re doing in the court system. And I’m going to talk to you today briefly, because I think the most important person to hear from is Ebony about Mental Health Courts

00:05:28.580 –> 00:05:50.019

Hon. Tina Nadeau: and Drug Courts, and, as you heard, we also have some Veteran’s Courts, and we now have one Family Treatment Court in Sullivan County, where families who risk losing their kids because of substance use disorder, are able to reunite with them by engaging in this family drug court program. So let me, the other thing I want to talk about is what we do have. We have drug courts, and we have mental health courts.

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Hon. Tina Nadeau: But everybody knows. I’m sure, on this call that, regardless of which program someone finds themselves in everyone that we deal with has co-occurring issues. So, people who are in drug courts primarily dealing with substance use disorder. They have co-occurring mental health issues that need addressing, and same for the folks who are in mental health courts. They have co-occurring substance use disorder issues that need addressing. So

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Hon. Tina Nadeau: what I love about both of these programs is the opportunity to make sure we are addressing all those needs in one setting, instead of ordering people to go to various different providers. So, both of these plans and these programs are designed to treat the whole person.

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Hon. Tina Nadeau: What I also love about drug and mental health courts is, it’s finally a way for the criminal justice system to say.

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Hon. Tina Nadeau: these are public health issues, and we need to be looking at them as public health issues. You know. When I first started 27 years ago, I saw somebody come in my courtroom, and I learned what they did to bring them there, and I didn’t learn anything else about them, and we all know there’s so much more that goes on for people who are struggling with mental health challenges and substance use issues back when they were very young. There’s also trauma

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Hon. Tina Nadeau: that’s involved for everybody in our mental health court and treatment courts.

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Hon. Tina Nadeau: So over time beginning to learn that we are really in the court system, we are obligated morally and ethically to look at people holistically, and to understand that they aren’t in our courtrooms just because of something they did. They’re in our courtrooms because of a lot of issues that need addressing that we have failed in the criminal justice system to address appropriately. So that’s what I love about these 2 programs.

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Hon. Tina Nadeau: And here I’m sure you all know this. But here is a slide that really, really, got me going, because, as you can see, when we’re looking at the general population compared to state prisons and local jails. And we’re looking at people with substance use issues and serious mental health issues. They are so overrepresented in our jails and prisons, and that’s not the right place for people to get treatment and care for the issues that bring them to the criminal justice system.

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Hon. Tina Nadeau: So, this slide told me we need to be doing something different. And I, I, often say, when I come to these trainings, that it’s jails or prisons changed behavior, they would be empty. And they’re not. So, we need to look at this as the public health issue that it is

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Hon. Tina Nadeau: so. Here’s just a brief history on how drug courts came about the first one was it way back in 1989, and in Dave County and we in the eighties, you know we engage in this war on drugs. And I, I, think about it really as the war on people who use drugs. That’s kind of what we were doing, and we were flooded with cases with people who had substance, use disorder, issues, mental health issues, and the, the, jails and prisons became just over filled.

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Hon. Tina Nadeau: You may not know this, but the United States has the highest incarceration rate of any other country on this planet. It is 5 times the world, wide average and depending on what study you look at, it’s either Russia or Korea. That is a distance. Second.

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Hon. Tina Nadeau: The other thing that’s really important to know is that only 7% of people who struggle with substance use disorder do not have trauma and their backgrounds. So, we need to be looking at trauma

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Hon. Tina Nadeau: in, in, every aspect of people’s lives, and because we have learned to treatment courts that

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Hon. Tina Nadeau: it’s really hard for people to talk about trauma to uncover that trauma, to manage that trauma. And so, we need to get them sort of stabilized. We need to give them a dose of treatment before we can help them start working on those trauma issues in both mental health courts and drug courts. So currently, we have drug courts. Now in 10 of our 11 counties which I’m really happy about.

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Hon. Tina Nadeau: In 2016 I work with the legislature to get statewide funding to support all of these drug courts, so they are actually funded through the general fund budget through the State. Before that one county would maybe get a federal grant. Another county would start a pilot project without any money. Another county would convince their county administration to fund it. So, it was kind of all over the map, and my hope for the future is to take the same approach with mental health courts.

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Hon. Tina Nadeau: So here you can see the history of mental health courts as well. We had at, at, the same time that we had this war on drugs. We had the deinstitutionalization of individuals with mental illness, which was a good thing. It was well intended, and the idea was when we reduce that sort of over hospitalization of people. We need to reinvest in our community mental health system. Unfortunately, that reinvestment did not

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Hon. Tina Nadeau: occur fully, and again the courts and jails were flooded with people who have some serious mental health issues.

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Hon. Tina Nadeau: So, we do have, and that you’ll see a chart later on. We have mental health courts in 6 of our 10 counties. And the difference between the 2 basically depends on an assessment. We do a risk, need assessment of everybody who might qualify for drug court or mental health court to figure out where’s the right fit for them? What are their most prominent needs. How do we address those needs?

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Hon. Tina Nadeau: serious mental illness

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Hon. Tina Nadeau: it? What? But again, I’ll emphasize how important it is for both of these models to be addressing both substance use and mental health issues.

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Hon. Tina Nadeau: So, let me, I know I’m going to just keep to my 15 min. But let me tell you how they actually work in in the traditional sort of criminal justice system. Me as a, as a superior court judge without these options would listen to the State argue for probably incarceration. The defense would argue for suspended time, and those would be sort of my only options, and it was really adversarial, and it was really sort of a debate and an argument.

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Hon. Tina Nadeau: But what we do in mental health court and drug, drug courts, we create a team. So, each of those teams in both courts has the same judge, the same prosecutor, the same defense attorney, the same treatment provider, the same recovery support, person, the same probation officer, and the same person, maybe from the jail. So, all of those folks work together, and they go to trainings together to understand

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Hon. Tina Nadeau: addiction, to understand mental health issues, to understand how the brain works and to understand that our criminal justice response is not always one that’s going to help people get better. And so, we identify those people early in the process. Hopefully, by the time of arrest, the public defender usually has a good sense of what the needs are for these, these, people. And

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Hon. Tina Nadeau: The other thing I want to tell you about these courts is that we don’t want to build them so that we can arrest people and put them into the court system to get them treatment. That that’s not the right approach. Lots of folks should be diverted at the first time they meet with law enforcement diverted out of the system into treatment.

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Hon. Tina Nadeau: But if we have somebody who’s got a lengthy record, or it’s a serious offense, or they, they, have a severe substance. Use disorder, severe mental health issue, and they are at high risk for reoffending. If we don’t address those issues.

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Hon. Tina Nadeau: Then we treat them in our mental health and drug courts, and what we do is we have somebody enter a plea of guilty. They get a suspended sentence instead of an imposed sentence, they get a period of probation, and then they come to court, usually weekly, to meet with a judge and talk about how they’ve been doing. They also will appear at treatment, and for Drug Court. It’s 3 hours a day, 3 days a week.

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Hon. Tina Nadeau: They may start with inpatient. If that’s what’s required. They have regular recovery support activities, case management services, random drug testing. And I’ll just tell you this quick little story people for people in in Drug Court. If they were on traditional probation.

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Hon. Tina Nadeau: they would be told to show up every other Wednesday for a drug test at probation. And so, if they are not getting those kind of treatment services to understand how their brain works, they’ll stop using on Tuesday. Test negative on Wednesday start using again on Thursday. So, we do random drug testing both to help us know what the needs are, and for the participant to know they have the safety net.

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Hon. Tina Nadeau: They do regular reporting to probation; random home visits and mental health court and drug courts are very similar. They have this team approach. They have accountability and treatment. Together. They, they try to target people that we know are going to be coming through our court system. If we don’t deal with those underlying issues. We use incentives, sanctions and whoops, sorry incentive sanctions and treatment adjustments to help with behavior, modification.

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Hon. Tina Nadeau: And, and, so we use those models, both in mental health and drug courts and mental health courts are a little bit different. We don’t use the same type of sanctions. We use kind of different incentives, those kinds of things. And what I will tell you is that the drug courts are felony drug courses. They’re in all of our superior courts.

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Hon. Tina Nadeau: and so, depending on what the needs are depending on the model, we may place people in one or the other program. Now.

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Hon. Tina Nadeau: what, what, we know nationally is. There are national best practice standards for drug courts. They have not yet been developed for mental health courts. Unfortunately, so New Hampshire took a stab at creating them. Anyway, we created some guidelines instead of standards, because they haven’t quite been studied yet, but we were actually asked to present at the National Association of Drug Court Professionals on our national standards.

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Hon. Tina Nadeau: That we sort of, We model them mostly after the drug court standards and made adjustments where appropriate. So finally, in New Hampshire, we have some guidance. And our next step is to

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Hon. Tina Nadeau: create an office of treatment court, basically within the court system, so that we’ll have a head person like Alex.

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Hon. Tina Nadeau: And then we will have a statewide mental health core coordinator, a statewide drug core coordinator, a statewide family court coordinator. When that gets up and running so that we and then we have our housing services so we can have a more robust model going forward. Last thing I’ll say, is nationally, there are over 4,000 felony drug treatment courts, and nationally, there are about 500 or so mental health courts, so you can see, there’s

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Hon. Tina Nadeau: difference. And I think it’s because the Mental Health court model, though it’s showing promising progress, has not been fully

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Hon. Tina Nadeau: sort of empirically studied like drug courts, but that is, that is on its way here. So, we’re doing pretty well in New Hampshire when you compare ourselves to the nation, and that’s all I have to say, happy to answer questions as they come up. But I’d love for Alex to talk a little bit more in detail, and then we’re going to hear from Shelly about mental health courts. So, thank you.

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Hon. Tina Nadeau: And I will stop sharing my screen.

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Hon. Tina Nadeau: There we go. Okay.

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Alex Casale – Judicial Branch: Alright.

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Alex Casale – Judicial Branch: Thank you, Josh Nado, and thank you everybody. So

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Alex Casale – Judicial Branch: I am going to also share a couple of slides, although hopefully, that doesn’t give the folks heartburn, because I didn’t tell them I was going to. So let me just see if I can find the right

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Alex Casale – Judicial Branch: screen.

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Alex Casale – Judicial Branch: Can you see my slideshow?

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Michelle Wagner, NAMI NH (she/her): Almost there it is.

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Michelle Wagner, NAMI NH (she/her): No worries. We’re happy that you have slides, Alex.

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Alex Casale – Judicial Branch: All right. Can you see it?

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Alex Casale – Judicial Branch: And I did not mean to share from there. I wanted to share from here. Okay, so I figured I’ll just have this up while I’m we can. We can see your notes if you don’t. I don’t care about that if you don’t. Okay, yeah, there really aren’t any notes. Just what’s going to come up next. So, I guess there won’t be a surprise when I switch slides. So, it’s only going to. We’re going to have up 2 or 3 slides while I talk. So, this is just kind of show you the adultery courts, family treatment chords, veterans, tracks, and the mental health courts where they are.

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Alex Casale – Judicial Branch: you know, in the State. So, if, if, if anybody was interested, like what counties they are in or what circuit courts they’re in. these are the different locations. So essentially

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Alex Casale – Judicial Branch: the adult drug courts have been around for about 35 years, just one year. Shy of that. And so, as Josh said it was. It’s first started off in Miami and Miami day. And, and, they wanted to create a program that would be able to divert people from going to, to, you know, State Prison, or to, to, jail on felonies that had drug charges, and it looked very, very different back then

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Alex Casale – Judicial Branch: and over the course of. You know, in the past 35 years the Drug Court model has evolved and back. Then it was, you know, they, they, would take sometimes first-time offenders. they weren’t really doing risk assessments. And so, over the course of that time, things have changed. We now have the best practice standards, video dealt drug courts, and, like Josh and I would said, we don’t have those on the Mental Health court side yet. So

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Alex Casale – Judicial Branch: now things are very, very different now. with the adult drug courts, you’re looking at the high risk. I need individual that was discovered to have a better outcome with this type of intense program than a low-risk individual And so when it came to creating them in New Hampshire, we started them

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Alex Casale – Judicial Branch: probably 5 or 6 years before best practice standards came up. So, the first 2 or 3 drug courts

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Alex Casale – Judicial Branch: we’re kind of operating on some old practices, but then, once best practices came out, we all changed and adapted what we were, what we were doing. And then all of the newer drug courts that were created after 2,016, when the when the legislation was passed, to have statewide drug courts. they all thought, follow best practice standards, and so.

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Alex Casale – Judicial Branch: as, as, an example is to

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Alex Casale – Judicial Branch: how the landscape of these programs continues to evolve. Was, I was working with the Miami Day Team about a month ago, and they were looking at adding additional tracks, and they were looking at changing and adapting some of their practices and changing their phase structure. So even the first drug court in the country is still looking to make sure that they are aligned with best practices, making sure that they’re addressing all the participants that I can probably address. And then what that would look like?

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Alex Casale – Judicial Branch: And so these programs are continually changing, based on the, the, research that that that’s discovered as time goes on, and I’m, I’m, confident that the mental health courts will eventually get to that point to where they will be best practice standards right now. We just don’t have them and so we create our own guidelines, and I’ll, I’ll, talk a little bit more about that in a minute. But with the with the adult drug courts.

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Alex Casale – Judicial Branch: We started off with

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Alex Casale – Judicial Branch: enabling legislation. We went to the legislature and said, Hey, we, we want to be able to create legislation for the Day Drug Courts. That says, this is a good idea. If you would like to create a drug court in your county. The court supports it, and it should look at least like this. And it was based on the 10 key components of a drug course. It was really a skeletal outline of what a program should look like if you were going to create one

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Alex Casale – Judicial Branch: from that point.

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Alex Casale – Judicial Branch: you know, 5 or 6 years down the road then we create, then we were able to have some new legislation which looked into funding the all the different players, the you know Democrats, Republicans, at the, at the legislative level

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Alex Casale – Judicial Branch: recognize that this program works, and it also is kind of bipartisan because it, it, reunites families. It gets people out of jail. It saves money, and holistically it just makes that person whole again. So, it was. It was decided in 2016 that they would create legislation, to be able to fund adultery courts in every county.

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Alex Casale – Judicial Branch: now, over the course of having run those for the past 7 years.

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Alex Casale – Judicial Branch: If you were to walk into any drug court you would be able to recognize where you are, because they all look and operate the same.

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Alex Casale – Judicial Branch: But they’re slightly different. And that’s that slight difference. They’re still following best practice standards, but all of their resources are a little bit different. Depending on the jurisdiction. It looks a little bit different. If you’re in a rural area as opposed to an urban area. If you’re in Manchester versus Lancaster, New Hampshire, they’re just slightly different resources available to the participants, to the program itself. So, you can recognize that it’s a drug court if you are just wander into court one day.

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Alex Casale – Judicial Branch: but it would slightly be different. So, they’re still following best practices, but just wanted to, to, point out that there. There are some nuances. There can be some, you know, a slight changes and shifts based on the, the, local resources that that program might have.

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Alex Casale – Judicial Branch: So, when we talk about mental health courts.

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Alex Casale – Judicial Branch: I want it to take some time to talk about the sequential intercept model, as most of you are probably already aware of this. You know, there’s different levels of, of, intercept, and the mental health courts are primarily looking at. Intercept

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Alex Casale – Judicial Branch: number 3, which is where you see the, the, specialty court block in there.

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Alex Casale – Judicial Branch: And so we currently the judicial branch is looking to do a so sequential intercept model mapping training in every county we start off with Merrimack County, and it went over really? Well, that was probably about 2 months ago, and we are now going to have

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Alex Casale – Judicial Branch: center for State governments come and train individuals on how to be a sequential intercept model mapping trainer. So that we can then take that and go into every county to make sure that every, every, county has this available. And it’s, it’s, a 2 day process. It’s very lengthy. You, you, pull in all the players. And you basically just map out what’s available in our county for resources. What’s not available? What’s lacking? Where can we fill in the gaps? so that we have a

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Alex Casale – Judicial Branch: wider range of options when it comes to people that are arrested, that also have

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Alex Casale – Judicial Branch: mental health diagnosis. Can we divert them into intercept zero or one? Do they even need to go and be detained? And if they, if they are detained, then what can we do with that intercept? And if they do come in to the court system, are they eligible for a mental health court? So, you know, having all these off ramps

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Alex Casale – Judicial Branch: rather than just having somebody arrested because they’re off their medications, and then they end up in jail for a long period of time. This, hopefully, Will we’ll, we’ll, solve some of those issues. But in order to do that, we need to know what’s available in that particular jurisdiction.

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Alex Casale – Judicial Branch: We did have some enabling legislation for mental health courts years ago. That’s been an existence for quite some time. And we, although we don’t have pending legislation to help fund mental health courts in every jurisdiction

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Alex Casale – Judicial Branch: we, we, are writing. And we wrote some Federal grants, and hopefully, we’ll get some of those to be able to help out with some resources, be able to help out with some training. You know, with a database for those programs. And in addition to that, we created our statewide guidelines. So, those, those guidelines is, is, is a document that will.

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Alex Casale – Judicial Branch: We will put it in the chat. You can click on it if you want, you can read through it if you’d like, and it is took us over a year to create this. There were many, many stakeholders across the across New Hampshire that helped, and we also partnered with center for State governments. And we, It was a lot of work. And so, although these are not best practice standards, because we’re not a research organization. We didn’t, you know, have a comparison groups and all that.

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Alex Casale – Judicial Branch: we feel that if you’re going to have a mental health court, it would. It’d be best if you follow these guidelines knowing that we can in. We’re not enforcing these. We’re also not able to give additional resources to a program that would like to start a mental health court, or currently has one to be able to follow the guidelines.

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Alex Casale – Judicial Branch: But if you are interested in adapting and changing some of your practices, you know here, here’s some things that you might be able to do to make them your mental health port. Operate a little bit differently.

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Alex Casale – Judicial Branch: And so

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Alex Casale – Judicial Branch: Then I wanted to take just a minute to talk about this right here, which is the high risk I need. Low risk, low need model. So, the, the SIM mapping, unfortunately, is 2 dimensional. It doesn’t really talk about risk and need assessments. So same thing on the Mental Health Court side as in the adult drug court side. To take somebody in, you should be doing a, a, risk and needs assessment, and the program itself should be tailored towards that person’s risk and need.

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Alex Casale – Judicial Branch: So, if you are, I know some of our mental health courts have more than one track, which, which, I think is fantastic. Because if you’re a low risk

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Alex Casale – Judicial Branch: person meaning you’re you. You haven’t been involved in the criminal justice system for a very long time. You have good family support.

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Alex Casale – Judicial Branch: but you I have a mental health diagnosis and you get arrested. You don’t need to see the judge every single week. You don’t need the intense supervision that somebody that’s high risk might need. So, by having more than one track. That person can go into a low risk track and maybe see the judge once a month. But they’re still going to get the treatment.

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Alex Casale – Judicial Branch: They’re still gonna get the, the, support of counselors. If you’re a high risk, individual, and you have your, you know, a diagnosis, then that person should be seen more often by probation parole by the judge to make sure that they’re following their treatment plan. And so, this

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Alex Casale – Judicial Branch: park program is more geared towards substance, abuse disorder, and not so much the SIM Mapping, but it kind of is more so. You can turn it and see where, on the intercept and on the risk need profile. What program best suits that individual?

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Alex Casale – Judicial Branch: And with that being said, I am. And with me

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Michelle Wagner, NAMI NH (she/her): so, Judge Nadeau, did you want to answer any of the questions before we go over to Shelley.

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Hon. Tina Nadeau: Sure, yeah. And, and, Shelly could chime into. I did answer a couple of them in writing. But here’s a, a, very good question. So, my loved one with severe substance use disorder and dual diagnosis needs to have a felony charge before getting this help?

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Hon. Tina Nadeau: That is an excellent question. And that’s why Alex’s presentation is important, because we want to start educating everyone in the criminal justice system about each intercept. If somebody ends up getting a, a, call for a law, enforcement gets called and they come to a scene. The first

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Hon. Tina Nadeau: thing that should happen is an assessment of whether or not that person even needs to be arrested. And when we tried some of these, since sequential intercept mapping meetings many years ago, just having the chief of police at the same table with the CEO of the Mental Community Mental Health Center

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Hon. Tina Nadeau: was an important connection to make, because they made an agreement that police would contact

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Hon. Tina Nadeau: her organization before making an arrest, to see if that person qualified. Oftentimes people qualified and didn’t know it and couldn’t get themselves to that mental health service. So, you are absolutely right. We do not want to arrest people for a felony just to get them these services. But this model is for the people that would otherwise be arrested and need to be arrested. And we are using instead of jail or prison.

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Hon. Tina Nadeau: So hopefully. That answers the question. And the second one, I think maybe Shelley might be better able to answer. There is a Mental Health Court in Bretwood Circuit Court, and the information this person is getting from the Rockingham County attorney’s office is that without a formal diagnosis the person can’t go through mental Health court and the examples. What if there’s an adult child suffering from a specific condition, but refuses to release

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Hon. Tina Nadeau: records showing his diagnosis? What would happen in that case? Shelley.

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Shelly Golden, Coordinator, Grafton County Mental Health Court: That’s a great question. What I find and what we encourage in our mental health court is, is, is, communication. So, it might not be a. We all have different ways of receiving referrals. So, in Grafton County anyone can refer to it. But at that sometimes it’s a little bit different, depending on the county, but I do know that usually the liaisons for Mental Health Court or the coordinators really welcome conversations

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Shelly Golden, Coordinator, Grafton County Mental Health Court: with people who want to call in and discuss paths to the mental health courts. and therefore kind of explain the process. Assessments are important, and we know that right off the bat for anybody with a substance use disorder and mental health disorder or suspected right? We might not know exactly what’s going on for someone. So that’s why the assessments are so important.

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Shelly Golden, Coordinator, Grafton County Mental Health Court: So, getting that diagnosis can be super helpful to, because then we can know what to do next. but sometimes a screening can happen quite

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Shelly Golden, Coordinator, Grafton County Mental Health Court: more quickly. Or sometimes we can get documents from, from, prior assessments to kind of pull forward and help move things in, in the right direction. But I feel like dialogue. Real conversations with people can really it. I, I, know it helps me figure out what the next steps might be. It helps start to build team and,

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Shelly Golden, Coordinator, Grafton County Mental Health Court: and it also pulls in can pull in family members, and you know to defend it themselves. So,

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Hon. Tina Nadeau: the need that we have for assessing all the mental health courts figuring out where they are different, whether we should make changes to make them more consistent. So that’s kind of our next goal. For when we actually hire a statewide mental health core coordinator for that person to go out and assess all the mental health courts and see are they using sort of the, the, the, same important pieces of the guidelines, although there will be, continue to be differences. But I, I, love the, the, answer shelly. Thanks.

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Shelly Golden, Coordinator, Grafton County Mental Health Court: Okay, you’re welcome.

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Michelle Wagner, NAMI NH (she/her): So, Shelly. You want to go ahead and tell us about mental health courts in New Hampshire. I, I, would love to thank you for having me. I’m here and happy to be here on behalf of kind of our collective effort around the State of New Hampshire. Working with all of our mental health courts. As already mentioned, we meet monthly. We’re a dedicated group of people. Michelle Wagger. You meet with us as well. Alex, so you are there with us as well.

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Shelly Golden, Coordinator, Grafton County Mental Health Court: Susan, you’ve been there with us in the past. it’s, it’s, a group effort. And we’re really dedicated to trying to do the absolute best work that we can. So, we talk a lot. We share a lot all of our programs. Yes, are a little bit different. But we’re trying to figure it out, okay, since they’re different. That’s a strength. We can learn from each other what works best. What resources do we have? What resources don’t we have? so that we can. continue to do the best we can with what we have.

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Shelly Golden, Coordinator, Grafton County Mental Health Court: So, I’m here on everyone’s behalf. I, I, I, am a obviously my specialty is, is, in Grafting County. We are very rural, county and large. We have 3 mental health court programs. in our county, and we received our first referral in 2011, and we received a, a, count center for

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Shelly Golden, Coordinator, Grafton County Mental Health Court: It was. It was a justice in Mental health collaboration grant through the Council of State Governments. It was a 2-year grant. It was for planning and implementation. Grassroots started; a group of people dedicated people including some people who are still involved in our organization. Still got together monthly and said, this is what we need. We have to do something. We have a problem. where individuals with mental illness are getting stuck in our criminal justice system, and we don’t know what to do.

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Shelly Golden, Coordinator, Grafton County Mental Health Court: So, that’s how a lot of our mental health court started. and we’ve been going since then, And we are out right. Our programs are out of the circuit courts. in Plymouth, Littleton, and Lebanon. However, we do take felony referrals

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Shelly Golden, Coordinator, Grafton County Mental Health Court: that are going to be downgraded to misdemeanors, and several of our mental health courts run that way. and as mentioned, we do have in that in New Hampshire, a few of our programs that also have separate superior court felony level.

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Shelly Golden, Coordinator, Grafton County Mental Health Court: Not help course as well, in the middle In our mental health court programs and grafting County. All 3 of them have veteran tracks.

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Shelly Golden, Coordinator, Grafton County Mental Health Court: and we needed. We really, really, wanted to have a kind of a specialized response to the work we do with our veteran population. So, we started working with our base, and we currently have on our team. A veterans justice outreach worker.

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Shelly Golden, Coordinator, Grafton County Mental Health Court: Who really is specializes in working with justice involved veterans, so that person provides clinical case management. To our veteran track participants.

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Shelly Golden, Coordinator, Grafton County Mental Health Court: That veterans track is a track under our mental health court so offered a lot of the same you know, benefits and support services as working with the team coming to court monthly but they do have that directly is on to the veterans justice outreach worker and the VA Services as well as community support and resources as well. So, we’re very lucky to have that. And there is other

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Shelly Golden, Coordinator, Grafton County Mental Health Court: New Hampshire mental health courts that also run this way or have separate veterans’ courts?

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Shelly Golden, Coordinator, Grafton County Mental Health Court: Something I know, for a fact is that all of our New Hampshire mental health courts. Although we run a little differently. Depending on the court we, we, really strive for the same things? But we, honoring the value of relationship building with the participants. Their families, any support systems they have is paramount.

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Shelly Golden, Coordinator, Grafton County Mental Health Court: We, we do exit surveys for when participants complete, whether successfully or not, and what we hear often is, you know we know how important perceived justice is

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Shelly Golden, Coordinator, Grafton County Mental Health Court: when someone’s involved in a program, and they feel like people are really listening to them and understanding their side of things, and where they’re coming from, and why they’re doing what they’re doing. And they can speak that and share it. That goes a long way towards trust building. And then, right then, you can really start to identify with individuals and treat them as individuals and have a better response.

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Shelly Golden, Coordinator, Grafton County Mental Health Court: That’s what we’re trying to do. Also, we strive to have clear expectations. so that when individuals come into the program they really, really, know what they’re signing on to.

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Shelly Golden, Coordinator, Grafton County Mental Health Court: and then we continue to clarify and clarify as we go. So that’s important for, for, participants. It’s also important for every team member and for our programs. Because if we have clarity, and what, what, we’re doing is best we can. That really helps others feel more comfortable and engage in a program.

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Shelly Golden, Coordinator, Grafton County Mental Health Court: So that’s what we hope to do. And in it. And we do that, we can more easily address symptoms and then target behavioral changes. Right? Because then you’re getting more personal and into people’s lives. And that’s where the trust really comes in and is important.

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Shelly Golden, Coordinator, Grafton County Mental Health Court: To do that and to treat people with that level of respect that we do. We are listening, and we’re understanding. We’re trying to include them because it is a fact that they are part of the team. They’re the most important part of the team. And we need their input to help get the resolutions that they want and that everybody else wants as well.

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Shelly Golden, Coordinator, Grafton County Mental Health Court: with some, some, participants in mental health courts. So, there’s a treating mental illness, substance use disorders, symptoms. and then there’s also addressing criminal thinking or anti-social belief systems and behavioral patterns. Those are things that treatment can, can, assist with. There are a lot of different evidence, based treatments. To help

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Shelly Golden, Coordinator, Grafton County Mental Health Court: people really recover in those areas? As well as case management. Basic needs if someone does have their basic needs. Matt, housing. A, a, substantial income. Those things can really impair someone’s progress.

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Shelly Golden, Coordinator, Grafton County Mental Health Court: Also, some individual struggle with anti-social peer groups. It’s human nature. We all want to be part of having relationships with other people of if but how do we, what’s good for us? Right, it? Who? Who’s, who’s, healthy to hang out with? Who is help, helpful? Healthy? How do we do that?

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Shelly Golden, Coordinator, Grafton County Mental Health Court: And some individuals have developmental impairments? or dysfunctional family systems. And that’s something we can get involved with to and help their homelessness. We know that’s a, a, problem as well. If someone even has treatment, but they lose their housing, and they have to move away from that treatment. That’s an issue. So, we try to, to, wrap around all of that including insurance, and make sure people have insurance to kind of pay for all those, those, pieces.

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Shelly Golden, Coordinator, Grafton County Mental Health Court: It to get that support that they need we mentioned trauma? That’s a whole. Another piece. you know, as we know, symptoms of mental illness can impair people to the point where they become justice involved. So, law enforcement

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Shelly Golden, Coordinator, Grafton County Mental Health Court: or they may, people may struggle to even get to treatment due to depression, anxiety, past trauma, due to, to, to, to treatment for lack of treatment, psychosis, impulse control.

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Shelly Golden, Coordinator, Grafton County Mental Health Court: So, those are a lot of things that we find people really struggle with. And that’s real for them in the moment. So, we all strive to meet individuals where they’re at and it’s what I love about mental health courts.

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Shelly Golden, Coordinator, Grafton County Mental Health Court: and the treatment courts, is where We can help by slowing the process down for individuals to meet them where they are at. So, we’re not just pushing people along. They’re not people who will not gain from that. They’re not going to benefit. So, if we can slow the process down give them extra protection and understanding from the community

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Shelly Golden, Coordinator, Grafton County Mental Health Court: that just because someone’s entered into a mental health court doesn’t mean they’re going to. Just be well, it takes time and So we support and help other people understand that process. And where we’re at. And that’s

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Shelly Golden, Coordinator, Grafton County Mental Health Court: hugely important. And then, you know, every human being has motivation for change. You just have to kind of help. People find what their motivation is. and then what will drive somewhere, and that ties into our incentives program. which is hugely important in mental health. I love this part. It feels good for us. It feels good for our participants. And in Grafting County we are so very lucky

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Shelly Golden, Coordinator, Grafton County Mental Health Court: to have a nonprofit that we, we, developed. We currently have a board, a, a group of 5 individuals. that are volunteers that created this for this nonprofit. It’s called the Advocates for Grafton County Mental Health Court. There’s a website.

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Shelly Golden, Coordinator, Grafton County Mental Health Court: This extremely devoted group of individuals works closely with me all the time. We’re so thankful for the work they do. They provide education, awareness about mental health courts in Grafton County, and they’ve done so also at the State level.

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Shelly Golden, Coordinator, Grafton County Mental Health Court: they helped us get started our programs in in Grafton County, but also, they raise funds. They write grants. And do we make the most amazing newsletters? And you can check it out on the website there. And our newsletters about participants. So, stories of people who have really found this program

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Shelly Golden, Coordinator, Grafton County Mental Health Court: life changing and to those people. I’m so very thankful. for their work. But they, they this money helps support financially until we have incentives, money cash that we can buy gift cards. We can also help with basic needs. So, someone needs rent for a month. That’s happened.

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Shelly Golden, Coordinator, Grafton County Mental Health Court: If someone needs gas money to get to appointments, we can offer those cards, those things just help the barriers since there are so many out there. Anyway. there is. It helps us kind of move past. Some of those more quickly, so we can help people, and then they feel instantly supported. So, we’re very grateful and thankful to be able to, to, have those people in our lives. And Michelle, did you want to add anything here?

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Michelle Wagner, NAMI NH (she/her): Sure, I would love to because I am a family member he loved one went through Mental Health Court, and it was a decade ago, and it was early on in his mental health journey, and so we didn’t know what things were going to look like, and what it happened was, he had a manic event, and he did destruction within my condo, and I was really on the fence. Do I report this? What if he goes on to do something bigger?

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Michelle Wagner, NAMI NH (she/her): I mean, I just didn’t know what this might lead to, and there was an option for Sea Coast Mental Health Center, where he was receiving services. They said, there is Mental Health Court. If you do press charges, he would be able to enter Mental Health Court.

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Michelle Wagner, NAMI NH (she/her): And I it was really it was a lot of soul searching to decide whether or not I wanted to do that, but I felt like there was a safety net, and I felt like he would be taken care of. And so, I did press charges.

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Michelle Wagner, NAMI NH (she/her): And he did enter Mental Health Court and completed it. It was life changing. I am such an advocate of mental health, for so that is why sitting in on those meetings is the family perspective. And with that I would love to turn it over to Ebony to talk about her personal experience.

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Ebony Martin, CPSS, CRSW at MHCGM: Thank you so much, and thank you all for having me here. I just want to check and make sure everybody can hear me. Okay.

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Ebony Martin, CPSS, CRSW at MHCGM: all right. My name is Ebony. I am a former participant in the community connections program through the Manchester district for and I just wanted to share with you a little bit about my experience with the Mental Health court and where I’m at now.

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Ebony Martin, CPSS, CRSW at MHCGM: So, in order to give you a little bit of a background. So, you know what led me there. I’m just going to share a little tiny bit about how I got there.

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Ebony Martin, CPSS, CRSW at MHCGM: So, as a child, I had a lot of childhood trauma and that childhood trauma

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Ebony Martin, CPSS, CRSW at MHCGM: led me to live a life undiagnosed. So, my coping skill was at the age of 13 to start using drugs and alcohol.

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Ebony Martin, CPSS, CRSW at MHCGM: So,

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Ebony Martin, CPSS, CRSW at MHCGM: Me using the drugs and alcohol clouded my judgment enough where, I got into relationships. Got into some trouble with, you know, hanging out with the wrong crowds dropping out of school, giving up sports. All the things that I cared about kind of went to the wayside

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Ebony Martin, CPSS, CRSW at MHCGM: and one of those unhealthy relationships that I got into.

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Ebony Martin, CPSS, CRSW at MHCGM: It was very physical. and it was very unhealthy. I continue to use drugs. And it throughout that whole entire relationship.

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Ebony Martin, CPSS, CRSW at MHCGM: I had had my first child at the age of 16, 2 months after my sixteenth birthday.

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Ebony Martin, CPSS, CRSW at MHCGM: eventually got married and had 2 more children. but none of none of the problems went away.

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Ebony Martin, CPSS, CRSW at MHCGM: So eventually, in 2014, myself and my significant other had gotten into one last physical altercation. The police were called, and I ended up getting arrested.

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Ebony Martin, CPSS, CRSW at MHCGM: So, I was going to court, and I was facing 4 felony charges

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Ebony Martin, CPSS, CRSW at MHCGM: and my lawyer

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Ebony Martin, CPSS, CRSW at MHCGM: had presented to me to get into the community connections program and explained a little bit about what that would entail, and my first reaction, because of my own stigma against mental health was, I’m not crazy. I’m not going to mental health services. I’m not doing this like it wasn’t me. It was him. And you know all the things that come along with this stigma about mental health.

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Ebony Martin, CPSS, CRSW at MHCGM: Then, he said, you know. Just give it a try. See? You know, if it helps and you know you have this option to have your charges expense, and that or a note. And so, I was like, Oh, that sounds okay, all right. I’ll give it a try.

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Ebony Martin, CPSS, CRSW at MHCGM: So

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Ebony Martin, CPSS, CRSW at MHCGM: immediately. You know, I took it as a punishment. I’m like I’m being punished for this. This is, you know, all wrong. I was very uncomfortable, very scared.

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Ebony Martin, CPSS, CRSW at MHCGM: But when I met with the, the, liaison.

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Ebony Martin, CPSS, CRSW at MHCGM: and they gave me the initial assessment, and they gave me my diagnosis and told me that I could get treatment, and that this was something that we could work with.

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Ebony Martin, CPSS, CRSW at MHCGM: It was like a light bulb went off, and I was like, are you kidding me like this is why I have been this way this whole time. And I’ll share with you my diagnosis, just because I want you to, to, know the severity of what I was dealing with on my own coping by myself.

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Ebony Martin, CPSS, CRSW at MHCGM: so, my diagnosis was borderline personality disorder

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Ebony Martin, CPSS, CRSW at MHCGM: post-traumatic stress, disorder, severe depression, anxiety and substance use disorder.

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Ebony Martin, CPSS, CRSW at MHCGM: So, all of these things I’m dealing with on my own trying to cope

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Ebony Martin, CPSS, CRSW at MHCGM: But when he explained this stuff to me and said that there was treatment. It was like this. Huge weight was lifted off my shoulders. And finally I could breathe. And I could say, okay, maybe this isn’t a punishment. Maybe this is something that was meant to happen

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Ebony Martin, CPSS, CRSW at MHCGM: at this moment, so that I could. You know

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Ebony Martin, CPSS, CRSW at MHCGM: better myself. And so, I went through the treatment I got into North End Counseling, which is a part of the Mental Health Center Of Greater Manchester.

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Ebony Martin, CPSS, CRSW at MHCGM: It was very, very hard looking at myself and looking at the things that were eating away at me deep down in my, in my being and working on those things.

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Ebony Martin, CPSS, CRSW at MHCGM: I have to say, though it was definitely worth it.

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Ebony Martin, CPSS, CRSW at MHCGM: And because I bought into this and I and I was at a point where I was ready, and I was just tired of living a life of just misery.

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Ebony Martin, CPSS, CRSW at MHCGM: I, you know, worked my hardest. I did everything that they suggested. and I graduated from the community connections program after a year.

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Ebony Martin, CPSS, CRSW at MHCGM: My charges were nulled and

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Ebony Martin, CPSS, CRSW at MHCGM: a couple of years after that well, probably like

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Ebony Martin, CPSS, CRSW at MHCGM: a few years after I decided to go and work at the mental health center as a peer support specialist.

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Ebony Martin, CPSS, CRSW at MHCGM: I also, while working, achieve my certified recovery support worker certificate. So, the team that I work on is that sort of community treatment team. So, I work with people with severe and persistent mental illness. A lot of them have substant use disorder to

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Ebony Martin, CPSS, CRSW at MHCGM: and this is the, the, most rewarding job I’ve ever had. I never could keep a job more than like 3 months, you know, and I’ve been at the company for 5 years, as of the sixteenth of this month.

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Ebony Martin, CPSS, CRSW at MHCGM: In January I celebrated 9 years of recovery. and I am just

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Ebony Martin, CPSS, CRSW at MHCGM: so excited. I go back into the court systems and I speak with people who are signing into the community connections program share my experience with them. Let them know that this is not a punishment, that you can really better yourself.

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Ebony Martin, CPSS, CRSW at MHCGM: And I let them know that I’ve been through it that it is hard work, but it’s so worth it. And that’s why I’m sharing my story today. It’s because I want everybody to know. You know what I went through, and how I did it, and the fact that it is possible, and that there’s hope at the end of time. So

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Ebony Martin, CPSS, CRSW at MHCGM: thank you so much for having me, and I appreciate it, and if there’s any questions, I’m more than happy to answer

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Hon. Tina Nadeau: Ebony. That is such a great story. You are an inspiration, and I hope you know, I hope you know how valuable you are as a recovery support peer, because we are fast learning, and we are including them in our drug courts and our mental health courts, that they are really that missing piece of connection between the work the team does, and for the participant to understand the value of it. So

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Hon. Tina Nadeau: you really, you make that connection, and we wouldn’t be successful without people like you. So, thank you so much.

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Michelle Wagner, NAMI NH (she/her): absolutely. And there’s lots of clap pans and hearts and celebrations going up for that. I did just want to put the, the, email addresses for myself, for Shelly and for Alex into the chat. So, folks have those, and some questions have come through that our panelists have been answering. Is there any information you want to share with a group

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Hon. Tina Nadeau: about those questions or comments that have come through? Someone mentioned the holistic approach. And yeah, many of us have felt that’s been missing, and treatment and care for our loved ones. Right? That’s that is such a great point. And that’s what I love about both Mental Health Court and Drug Court is even the judges were trained to be motivational, you know. When I, when I first started on the bench, I learned I order someone to do something, and if they don’t do it, then they’re in trouble instead. Now I learn

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Hon. Tina Nadeau: I’m not a treatment person, but I? I can use those techniques by asking people what’s working for you, what’s not working for you? Tell me more about that. How did you do this week. Tell me about your new job, or tell me what the struggle is with getting your kids back, you know, just having a real conversation with them, and including, and that whole picture addressing trauma, I mean, we’ve actually learned

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Hon. Tina Nadeau: the point at which you should address trauma. That’s not necessarily in the beginning. The point at which you should address that criminal thinking. That’s not necessarily in the beginning. So, we learn not only what we should be addressing, but when and how we should be addressing it, and how the team can do it consistently, so that we’re all sort of using that same motivational

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Hon. Tina Nadeau: approach. And the, the, other thing I would like to say is, we all know Shelley talked about this, that housing can be such a barrier to people being successful, and you know. I, I, try to imagine, and I can’t have! What it’s like to not have stable housing and try to be taking care of yourself. I mean it, it’s nearly impossible. So, we did recent. We got funding about 3 years ago through the Governor’s commission on alcohol and the,

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Hon. Tina Nadeau: the drugs for community housing program. And right now, the way it’s worded, it’s for people who are in drug court and people who are coming out of prison. It’s sort of temporary bridge housing. It helps people get on their feet. It helps them get stable enough to start paying for their own. We have relationships with sober houses. Landlords believe it or not. And through that program we’re able to teach community leaders about the value of

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Hon. Tina Nadeau: mental health and drug court. So, our goal is to hopefully extend that to the Mental Health Core community. Luckily, we’ve been demonstrating the success of the program, so I think it won’t be hard to argue why it should be applied in all the treatment court models. So that’s, that’s, another hope on the horizon.

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Michelle Wagner, NAMI NH (she/her): That is fabulous news.

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Michelle Wagner, NAMI NH (she/her): And Karen San is saying, I’m a case manager at the Carol County Doc Department of Corrections. And all of this sounds wonderful. We have such a need for finding placement and programs for those with substance use disorder and mental health. I would love to see Carol County get funding for the ability to have mental health, for how realistic is this what timeline? What might we be looking at?

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Hon. Tina Nadeau: Well, I can say. I think

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Hon. Tina Nadeau: we received statewide funding for drug courts in 2016. This budget cycle was the first year we asked for increased funding for the drug Court budget which we received. So, I feel like now that we’re proving the value of treatment courts. My hope, and the next step is to get make that convincing case for the funding of mental health courts through the general budget so that we can.

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Hon. Tina Nadeau: We can fund more of these programs and make sure they have all the right components to them. And my guess is, you know, I can say this. Well, it’s my hope. But you know, 18 months to 2 years looking at, I mean, I know that sounds kind of far away, but putting together a plan, for you know, maybe even incremental funding. But something to happen concretely within that time frame.

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Shelly Golden, Coordinator, Grafton County Mental Health Court: I could also just offer a thought. you know. No, you know. Kind of funding can kind of roll in, you know, on its own pace, but something that can always be done ahead of time is connecting with others, and so I, I, I, will put myself out there as a contact to talk with, with you, and, and ,with your anybody who wants to get together in your county to start learning about the mental health, we, we, could invite you to one of our mental health courts to observe

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Shelly Golden, Coordinator, Grafton County Mental Health Court: or to talk to the team or to help in any way. Just kind of get, get, you started, or even think about who you might want to bring to the table to start talking with, so to throw that out there. There’s lots of, of help, because that is our hope to kind of share and keep sharing. It is so today we kind of speak with all the counties in mind that do not have You know mental health courts so great question. Thank you.

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Michelle Wagner, NAMI NH (she/her): And I was so surprised that they were so few mental health courts in relation to drug courts, and I learned that statistic because, as I said, it was about a decade ago that we

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Michelle Wagner, NAMI NH (she/her): we use mental Health court, and it’s just so effective. So, I’m a real advocate for getting them statewide, Alex, is there something you want to add?

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Alex Casale – Judicial Branch: no, I just wanted to thank everybody and I, it so that Karen had written something else, and to kind of address her issue. So there our question there was, there is a

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Alex Casale – Judicial Branch: the Delta Court in in her county, and it looks like she’s saying that she would like to see that the jail reentry program be part of the drug court. And you know, I

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Alex Casale – Judicial Branch: depending on the, the, policies and all that. I always like that the programs are able to play off of one another. I don’t know exactly how it looks like in in Carol County, but I know in many other counties. If the jail has a jail program, a bail supervision program and a drug court and a mental health court that somebody can be in a drug court. They’ve gone 2 or 3 times.

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Alex Casale – Judicial Branch: They need treatment, but they just can’t stick around. Maybe we put them in the jail program for a month, and then we take them back to jail. So, if they if they can, if they can, work independently and in conjunction with each other, then then absolutely I think that would that would be ideal. So, I’m sure that if you talk to the drug court, maybe there’s something that you guys can work out.

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Michelle Wagner, NAMI NH (she/her): That sounds great. And we have just a couple of minutes left. Any other

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Alex Casale – Judicial Branch: jurisdictions that can apply for we want to start a mental health court in our one little jurisdiction.

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Alex Casale – Judicial Branch: That is available. However, it’s only limited to governmental entities that can apply. So, for example, the entity that runs the drug court in Carol County, it’s the community Mental health center.

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Alex Casale – Judicial Branch: And so, the judicial branch contracts with them to run the drug court so they can’t apply to get funding to also do the Mental Health Court, but maybe the county could apply on their behalf, and they could just be a partner and have an mou. And so those usually come out like in the in the wintertime, and it would just be for, for, that one jurisdiction. But those, those, are available usually through SAMHSA or BGA.

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Shelly Golden, Coordinator, Grafton County Mental Health Court: Great. Thank you. Also. Also, Michelle, just really quickly. Grafton County did 2 separate cost savings studies for mental health for So again, if someone’s not incarcerated that that they don’t, that your county doesn’t have to pay for them to be incarcerated. and then also, if they’re not incarcerated, then there are psychiatric medications that they aren’t

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Shelly Golden, Coordinator, Grafton County Mental Health Court: being paid for. They can utilize insurance in the community, and so on and so forth. So, we have those studies to share that information. If anybody would like to have it, we’re happy to share.

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Michelle Wagner, NAMI NH (she/her): Excellent. Then they have your email addresses. Now. They can take that out of the chat. Just a reminder. Reach out to Shelley or Alex if you have any questions and not in New Hampshire, has the information and resource line. So please, you can email us, you can call us and get connected, and we’ll help you in whatever way we can.

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Hon. Tina Nadeau: Judge Nadeau is there anything, any closing words you want to impart before we say no, I just. I am so grateful to Nami for inviting us. I think these kind of connections with community leaders and the court system and treatment providers are so important to campus. Keep us all educated. So, I appreciate the invitation.

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Michelle Wagner, NAMI NH (she/her): We’re very grateful to have you here. So, thank you to our panelists. Thank you so very much for addressing this topic today, just a reminder recording of today’s discussion will be posted on the education page of Onwardnh.org.

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Michelle Wagner, NAMI NH (she/her): You will receive an email in the next couple of days which will include links for the website along with an evaluation link. Once you’ve completed that survey, you’ll automatically receive a certificate of attendance in case you want one of those for questions or comments. Please reach out to me, and we look forward to seeing you next time. Until then. Take care. Thank you so much.

NH Mental Health and Drug Courts: Treatment instead of Jail Time

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