Today’s jails aren’t equipped to be the largest mental health providers in their community, and yet, so many are. As the cost of mental health care continues to rise, it’s time to assess the tools you already have and find ways to better serve your inmates and your community.
Here are the Top 5 most underutilized tools within equivant Corrections for working with mental illness:
- Integrated screeners. Most teams are using only a small fraction of what’s available, and often, teams have been using the same screeners for so long that they aren’t even aware of what they’re missing. Whether you’re looking to better serve those with substance use disorders, suicide risk, PTSD (both civilian and military versions are available), aggressiveness, or even general mental health, you already have a screener for that.
- Behavior and education plans. And yes, of course, they’re configurable. Your team can create personalized plans including an individual’s needs, goals, tasks, service providers, completion status, and more. There’s a lot to track when you’re caring for someone with a mental illness, and personalized plans can help.
- Agency-specific questionnaires. A lot of the information you need doesn’t belong in a screener, but it needs to be tracked somewhere. That’s where questionnaires come in. These non-scored tools can help you gather relevant information in a way that’s streamlined with your other processes.
- Sophisticated reporting. Using the Northpointe Suite’s tools for in-the-moment decision support is the right place to start, and many professionals don’t have time to go beyond that. The good news is, you can pull reports and track trends and patterns quickly and easily, and you already have everything you need to get started.
- Jail program tracking and selection. Manage all jail programs and get inmates connected with the right resources using configurable eligibility matrices, links to case planning and conditions, enrollment date and referral tracking, attendance tracking, completion statistics, and more.
How many of these tools is your team using? How many do you plan to start using?
Providing mental health care is not an easy job, especially in jails, and we all could use some easy wins. One great way to serve your community better is to start maximizing your use of equivant Corrections.
Let’s work together to get your jail on a healthier track. Get in touch with your equivant partners today. Not a customer yet? Don’t worry, we’re still here to help. Contact us for a free demo today.
