NCJ Number
242125
Date Published
2012
Length
20 pages
Annotation
This document, part 2 of a 3-part support series, is a self-advocacy and empowerment toolkit for use by individuals currently involved with the justice system.
Abstract
This document, developed by the National Alliance on Mental Illness, provides information on self-advocacy and empowerment for use by individuals currently involved with the justice system. The primary focus of the document is to identify resources and strategies to assist justice-involved individuals with behavioral health issues to successfully achieve their personal recovery goals. The toolkit begins with a brief discussion of recovery, a process of change through which individuals improve their health and wellness, and its guiding principles. These principles are: recovery is person-driven, recovery occurs via many pathways, recovery emerges from hope, recovery is holistic, recovery is supported by peers and allies, recovery is supported through relationship and social networks, recovery is culturally-based and influenced, recovery is supported by addressing trauma, recovery involves individual, family, and community strengths and responsibility, and recovery is based on respect. The toolkit next identifies the resources and strategies that justice-involved individuals can use to aid them in their recovery process. These resources and strategies include self-help and peer support services; self-exploration tools and recovery tools; wellness tools; alternative approaches to wellness; community connections: housing, employment/education, voting rights; understanding the behavioral health system, and the sequential intercept model. The sequential intercept model is a general description of each stage of the criminal justice process. By providing a description of this model, justice-involved individuals can identify different parts of the system that might provide opportunities for them to receive necessary services. Each section of the toolkit provides contact information for the different programs and resources identified in that section. Glossary