Lake County BHTCC

Lake County, located in the far northeastern corner of the state of Illinois, is applying for a SAMHSA grant to enhance the 19th Judicial Circuit’s Therapeutic Intensive Monitoring (TIM) courts. These problem-solving courts consist of the TIM Drug Court, TIM Mental Health Court, and the TIM Veterans Treatment and Assistance Court (VTAC). These courts serve a target population that has a substance use disorder (SUD), and/or mental illness. In Illinois, there are 24 circuit courts that serve as the courts of original jurisdiction. Lake County is one of the six counties with a circuit that is a single county. The remaining 18 serve circuits that compromise as few as two and as many as twelve counties per circuit. Illinois has no municipal court system. To build consensus and empower a greater number of public entities and social service agencies to utilize a trauma-informed approach to adult men and women with both behavioral and health issues and criminal-justice involvement, the 19th Judicial Circuit’s TIM teams will form the foundation a Behavioral Health Treatment Court Collaborative (BHTCC). This BHTCC will include a variety of public entities and agencies that will build consensus on the project’s goals, objectives, and strategies and develop sustainability plan; oversee the implementation of the enhanced services, and make adaptations as necessary based on interim evaluation reports. Additional stakeholders and agencies will be recruited to allow the dissemination of knowledge of trauma-informed care and recovery support services to a broad range of Lake County entities. The 19th Judicial Circuit TIM teams have identified the need for services to improve the employability of TIM court participants and to explore safe and sober housing for men and women in recovery and to develop individualized housing solutions. Coupled with this safe and sober housing is the need to provide additional peer-to-peer recovery support services in the evening and weekend hours. Current services and capacity has proven to be inadequate to effective serve offenders with Borderline Personality Disorders (BPD) – with or without a co-occurring SUD. In addition, the infrastructure of the TIM court stakeholders needs to be strengthened to provide more effective case management and information and referrals. Strategies to meet these needs include enhancing the TIM courts through the services of an Employment Specialist, a Safe Housing Advocate and a Recovery Peer. Dual Diagnosis Counselors will deliver the evidenced-based Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT) protocol that has proven to positively impact treatment outcomes with those with (BPD). Linkages between key stakeholders will be strengthened through the use of ServicePoint program – a county-wide web-based human services software platform that allows service providers to manage real-time client and resource data. The BHTCC will be evaluated by Dr. Gary McClelland of the Mental Health Services and Policy Program of the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University.