Forensic Mental Health: A Source Guide for Professionals is an innovative, yet practical new textbook that addresses the nexus of mental health and legal systems. Specifically, forensic mental health can be defined as the utilization of psychological strategies and techniques (e.g., diagnosis and treatment) to assist criminal justice-involved clients with mental health issues. These clients benefit from mental health care at all points in the criminal justice system, including prior to prosecution, during trial, and after adjudication. In these settings, mental health care can encompass everything from assessment and treatment services to casework management and collaboration with stakeholders. Such services are provided by a diverse group of professionals from different vocational and academic backgrounds (e.g., psychiatrists, psychologists, nurses, social workers, counselors, and others). The importance of forensic mental health services is highlighted by the fact that criminal justice-involved clients with mental health issues are disproportionately likely, relative to the general population, to be re-arrested, re-incarcerated, and victimized by others. Necessitated by the rapid development of the field, this practitioner-oriented textbook adopts a multidisciplinary perspective on several timely, prominent, and often overlooked issues in the field of forensic mental health. This textbook features 20 standalone chapters written by a diverse collection of authors drawn from a wide variety of disciplines. Topics covered include but are not limited to the role of mental illness in criminal behavior, special populations and neurobehavioral disorders, memory-related disturbances, competency to stand trial, and re-entry into the community. Although extensively referenced, each chapter is written in an engaging and easy-to-follow manner that is appropriate for undergraduate students, graduate students, and established professionals alike. As such, Forensic Mental Health: A Source Guide for Professionals serves as an incomparable tool for those learning about how to assist current or future clients. The value of Forensic Mental Health: A Source Guide for Professionals is based in its ability to serve a wide variety of roles for different people. First, the textbook can serve as a great introduction to forensic mental health for students considering a career in this field. This could include students from criminal justice, psychology, and human service programs. Second, the textbook has the potential to provide additional professional seasoning or training for professionals already working in the field, but who may be unfamiliar with some topics such as legal concepts (e.g., competency to stand trial). Third, the textbook can simply be an essential resource for experienced legal professionals, clinicians, or others who might need a refresher on a given topic. Fourth, this textbook could be valuable to professionals and organizations that are collaborating with forensic mental health professionals in an effort to serve criminal justice-involved clients. In light of this versatility, Forensic Mental Health: A Source Guide for Professionals is a valuable addition to any library.

The American Psychiatric Association Foundation has produced a new resource to help mental health professionals better support community members facing mental health challenges, Mental Health Professionals Guide to Their Role in the Criminal Justice System: A Quick Reference Pocket Guide for Mental Health Professionals. The resource is the culmination of work from a collaboration of psychiatrists and justice leaders. Community members with serious mental illnesses become entangled in the criminal justice system far too often. Once there, these individuals can suffer more harm and be retraumatized by spending more time in the pretrial stage. As a mental health professional, you have an important role in supporting these individuals and ensuring they continue to receive treatment and stay connected to services. The Guide includes an overview of the criminal justice system and specific roles mental health professionals can play in supporting community members at different stages of the system. We want to provide everyone that reads this guide with the tools necessary to reclaim your community members from the criminal justice system.

"This new edition of Professionalism and Ethics: Q & A Self-Study Guide for Mental Health Professionals thoroughly updates the highly regarded and groundbreaking first edition, offering the contemporary reader clinical wisdom and ethical guidance for challenging times. As with its predecessor, the second edition features commentaries by leaders in psychiatric ethics, plus two foundational chapters on ethics and professionalism in the field of mental health. These commentaries and introductory chapters provide an overview of essential ethical principles and concepts, the professional obligations of the mental health clinician, common ethical tensions found in practice, ethical aspects of caring for special populations, and ethical issues in professional training and research. The introductory chapters are followed by case-oriented questions and answers on core concepts and topics in clinical care, medical research, and interactions with colleagues and trainees. Topics explored in-depth include authorship, disclosure, and ethical peer review for scientific publications; assisted suicide and euthanasia; professional voyeurism versus patient privacy online and on social media; the appropriate process for reporting an impaired colleague; and problems of burnout, work-life balance, and professional well-being. Professionalism and Ethics: Q & A Self-Study Guide for Mental Health Professionals poses and plumbs critically important ethical dilemmas in a compelling, down-to-earth way for today's practitioners and learners"--

Written by a committee of the Group for the Advancement of Psychiatry, People With Mental Illness in the Criminal Justice System: Answering a Cry for Help represents the collective wisdom of leaders in community psychiatry and is the third in a series of successful publications that have used Dear Abby letters as source material. The letters, submitted by readers with experience with mental illness and the criminal justice system, constitute a rich, real-world repository for the case stories presented in this fascinating volume. Using the experiences shared in the letters, the authors employ the Sequential Intercept Model to present a series of chapters offering detailed recommendations for psychiatrists, group practices, and criminal justice entities on partnering with individuals who are at risk and their families, with the goal of improving outcomes. The book's many features and functions make it relevant to a diverse audience: * The Dear Abby letters on which the book's stories are based are heartfelt and human, providing a depth of emotion and understanding that cannot be found elsewhere, and the down-to-earth writing style and real-world material are designed to be useful and compelling to both practitioner and layperson.* The case-based recommendations for effective interventions are very specific and practical to promote and enhance clinical skill development. * A robust set of appendices presents information for professionals on a variety of critically important topics, including principles for criminal justice and community psychiatry; sequential intercept mapping; stages of engagement with the criminal justice system; HIPAA regulations; screening and mental status/criminal justice history; essential systems of care; and the risk-need-responsivity model.* An extensive section of criminal justice/mental health online resources addresses areas such as law enforcement, courts, corrections, evidence-based practices, veterans, organizations, and miscellaneous topics, providing avenues of information and assistance for individuals, families, and clinicians. This simple, evidence-based guide challenges psychiatrists to initiate changes in their clinical work; in the operation of their agencies, programs, and teams; and in their partnerships with local criminal justice and behavioral health providers to positively impact people with behavioral health conditions in the criminal justice system. Implementing the approaches described so eloquently in People With Mental Illness in the Criminal Justice System: Answering a Cry for Help can potentially reduce the overrepresentation of people with mental illnesses in justice settings, provide alternatives to incarceration, and divert individuals who do not pose a public safety risk from jail.

Social Work Practice in the Criminal Justice System presents an overview of the criminal justice system for social workers, exploring the networks and institutions which comprise it. Integrating social work ethics and a commitment to social justice, this textbook explores social work practice roles to address social problems within the criminal justice system and promotes the development of knowledge, skills, and critical reflection in this increasingly important area of practice. In addition to covering the four key areas for social work practice – law enforcement, courts, corrections, and legislation, it covers police social work and forensic social work. This second edition has been updated to include: The opioid crisis and opioid courts Separate chapters describing special populations and contemporary issues in the criminal justice system Expanded criminal justice perspectives and theoretical frameworks. Examining the challenges and opportunities of social work practice in the criminal justice system, this is the ideal text for social work instructors, students, and practitioners working with or within the criminal justice system. Each chapter includes a summary of social work practice implications, key terms, and suggestions for further reading.

The criminal justice system, with its complex policies and procedures and its focus on deterrence, punishment, and rehabilitation, can be a difficult system to understand. Social Work Practice in the Criminal Justice System presents an overview of the criminal justice system, exploring the network of systems which comprise it. Integrating social work values and a commitment to social justice, this textbook explores how social workers can practice to address social problems within the criminal justice system and promotes the development of knowledge, skills and critical reflection in this increasingly important area of practice. In addition to covering the four key areas for social work practice – law enforcement, courts, corrections, and legislation – it covers: Alternative programs and services Special populations – such as juveniles, women and sex offenders Special topics – such as reoffending, wrongful conviction and racial disparities The application of evidence-based practice principles in criminal justice. Looking at the challenges and opportunities of social work practice in the criminal justice system, this is the ideal text for social work instructors, students and practitioners working with or within the criminal justice system. Each chapter includes a summary of social work practice implications, key terms, and suggested further reading.