Mark Godwin, St. Lucie County
Anne Posey, New Horizons of the Treasure
Coast





Began 6/6/06 with 6 clients
Current 140 clients are active on the docket; recidivism
since beginning of program is about 7.6% for
convictions on new charges
Clients all have primary mental health diagnosis and
approximately 80% have a co-occurring substance
abuse diagnosis.
Enter as diversions, conditions of probation, and
conditional releases (NGI and ITP)
Team approach. Judiciary, state attorney, public
defender, mental health/substance abuse providers,
Agency for Person’s with Disabilities, housing
providers, jail personnel, county attorney, pretrial
services




Since 2006 there have been 330 graduates of Mental
Health Court, and we currently have 140 active cases,
which totals 470 individuals that have been diverted
from the jail.
The National average cost of Mental Health Cases in
custody is $125.00 per day times the Average Length of
Stay, which is 35 days equals $2,012.500.00 in savings
to the jail.
Please note that these are very conservative cost
estimates, due to the fact that mental health cases stay
up seven (7) times longer than the average inmate.
It should also be noted that the recidivism rate is 7.6 %
and the National average for MH Clients is 78 %.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wg9rBsX
u468&sns=em
2:10






Development team of stakeholders, took 6 months
to create an administrative order.
CJIS Analyst was hired and began working on
databases for jail and other services. Began
working on MHC Database when court started
and took about 6 months to develop with input
from team members.
Used existing servers and software but CJIS
analyst wrote code to incorporate the MHC needs
Database is utilized not only by MHC but by the
jail, the judiciary, drug court, drug lab, bondsmen,
& attorneys
Had to give up “my data” attitudes so that
information could be shared.
https://slccjis.stlucieco.gov/cjis_stats/
CJIS Architecture
Single User Login
Role Determines
Access





All team members have access and can look at
the same information in real time.
Ability of the team to communicate rapidly and
address problems between court dates.
Ability to monitor progress of clients
Efficiency on court days…Team uses summary
sheets to staff and deal with cases.
Ability to track expenditures for clients and the
program as a whole.
MHC Focus
Sensitive Data
Common Sense Approach
Password Issues
•Minimum length(8)
•Numbers/special
characters
•Password reset
Encryption
Access Rights
•Full
•View Only
Audit Trail
Digital Certificates debatable




Multiple people have access to enter
information
Some information is pulled from other
databases (jail for instance)
Clients sign a release of information for their
mental health information to be entered
Access is limited by need, some team members
have full access while others have read only
access and can’t see all information.


Throughout the week, Court Managers have
entered all contacts with client (very similar to
an electronic medical record)
The information gathered during these contacts
is used to populate the status sheet that is
given to the judge on court day.


Clients drug test a minimum of weekly. Those
test results automatically download to database
and positive results are sent via an automated e
mail to team members.
A positive result generates a flurry of activity
so that a plan can be created and presented in
court. The recommendations range from
increased treatment, community service and
jail.


Medications, appointments and special
instructions are entered so they can be given to
the client on court day on a reminder slip.
The court managers refer to this information in
order to confirm the client is keeping their
scheduled appointments.


Any expenditures are entered and a payment
voucher is automatically generated and sent to
the vendor and to the accounting department.
This ensures ease of tracking and back-up
documentation.


The day of court another staffing occurs with
the Judge. The database allows live updates so
information can be added during court.
Clients are given a “return to court” slip with
information about upcoming appointment,
next court date and other “to do” items



The database allows a multitude of reports to
be created from the data entered.
We track recidivism, expenditures, when
releases of information expire, when
probations end, how long it takes to get an
appointment, etc
This information is very useful when writing
new grants or when data is needed to show the
impact of Mental Health Court.
Mark Godwin, St. Lucie County
772-462-1418
godwinm@stlucieco.org
Anne Posey, New Horizons of the
Treasure Coast
772-337-5682
aposey@nhtcinc.org
Public Website
https://slccjis.stlucieco.gov/cjis_stats/