The State of Hawaii Adult Mental Health Division's 6th Annual Best Practices Conference, "Responsibility and Recovery in the Legal System"
April 14-16, 2009
Hawaii Convention Center in Honolulu, Hawaii
Contact Person: Jennifer Miyasaki
Phone, (808) 735-3515
Email: conference@mhsret.org
Evidence-based practices (EBPs) are services for people with severe and persistent mental illness which have demonstrated positive outcomes in multiple research studies. The Adult Mental Health Division strives to integrate these EBPs and other best practices into the array of services throughout the system. The annual Best Practices Conference highlights one or more EBPs each year to draw particular focus to these essential services and clinically proven approaches.
This conference further allows the AMHD to incorporate leading clinical interventions and promote individual recovery while remaining culturally informed, sensitive and responsive.
During the past 50 years, there has been a significant increase in the numbers of mentally ill individuals involved with the criminal justice system. More and more often, police officers, court personnel, parole and probation officers, and jail personnel handle cases involving mentally ill individuals. And, vice versa, more and more mental health providers work with consumers involved with criminal justice. These cases are called "forensic" cases – those that involve both mental health and criminal justice.
Unfortunately, forensic consumers are often forgotten, cast aside, or mischaracterized due to long-standing societal misconceptions and stigma. Truth is, mentally ill persons are arrested more frequently and spend more time in jail than non-mentally ill persons, even though the majority of their criminal activities involve non-violent, low-level quality of life transgressions. As a result of their legal histories, forensic consumers have more trouble securing treatment services, jobs, and housing – thus making it more likely for them to come back into contact with the police and courts. Police departments, courts, and correctional facilities have been ill-equipped to handle the influx of mental health issues they currently face.
This conference will be the first of its kind in Hawaii to fully address these issues. For the first time, all of the stakeholders in the process – including the forensic consumers and their families – are invited to one forum to discuss challenges and solutions to these difficult problems. Conference participants will learn about empirical research and ideas, attend sessions from both nationally-recognized keynote speakers and local experts, and interact with people in Hawaii involvedwith the intersection of mental health and criminal justice (mental health providers, court and jail personnel, police officers, cultural leaders, probation and parole officers, and others). This conference will promote and galvanize the tremendous collaboration that has recently occurred amongst all of these disparate people and agencies, and will serve as a springboard for transformative change in the lives of forensic consumers.