NEOMED Psychiatry Chair Co-Authors White Paper

It’s a fact: people with mental illness are overrepresented in all aspects of the criminal justice system—in encounters and arrests, as well as in prison, on probation or on parole. Many of those individuals have substance use disorders as well.

Two national foundations, one of them from Northeast Ohio with a NEOMED affiliation, have now published a white paper on the topic, part of a scholarly series designed to inform public policy regarding behavioral health.

NEOMED’s Mark Munetz, M.D., The Margaret Clark Morgan Foundation Endowed Chair in Psychiatry at the University’s College of Medicine, is a co-author of “Improving Outcomes for People with Serious Mental Illness and Co-Occurring Substance Use Disorders in Contact with the Criminal Justice System,” along with Glenda L. Wrenn, M.D., and Brian McGregor, Ph.D., both affiliated with the Morehouse School of Medicine. Read the paper [PDF]

The white paper is one of a series produced by The Thomas Scattergood Behavioral Health Foundation and by the Northeast Ohio-based Margaret Clark Morgan Foundation, which is involved in supporting efforts to address the over-representation of people with Severe Mental Illness in the criminal justice system. The Margaret Clark Morgan Foundation works closely with the Ohio Criminal Justice Coordinating Center of Excellence at NEOMED and is a prime supporter of the Stepping Up Initiative in Ohio, supporting the work of retired Ohio Supreme Court Justice Evelyn Lundberg Stratton.

A strong partnership

Philanthropy from the Margaret Clark Morgan Foundation supported the founding of NEOMED’s Best Practices in Schizophrenia Treatment (BeST) Center. The BeST Center promotes recovery and improves the lives of people with schizophrenia by accelerating the adoption of evidence-based and promising practices. It partners with community-based mental health treatment providers and offers training, consultation and technical assistance to make these practices available across Ohio.

Among the signature initiatives of the BeST Center, a national leader in best practices, are its FIRST program of coordinated specialty care for first-episode psychosis; pharmacotherapy for schizophrenia initiative promoting the appropriate use of clozapine and long-acting injectable antipsychotic medications; Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Psychosis; Cognitive Enhancement Therapy (CET); integrated mental health and primary health care; and family psychoeducation (family services).