Jeffrey Draine, MSW, PhD

Associate Professor

Research - Current Projects

Jail Diversion vs. In-Jail Services for Persons with Co-occurring mental illness and substance abuse disorders

Description: Jail diversion has been promoted as a service and policy response to the numbers of persons with mental illness in jails. This study is one of nine sites across the US funded to evaluate the effectiveness of jail diversion for people with mental illness and co-occurring substance use disorders. Two of Philadelphia’s suburban counties have national model programs, which provide an opportunity to test the diversion idea. Montgomery County uses a jail diversion program that includes training of police officers, expedited police drop-off at a psychiatric facility for people in psychiatric crisis, and follow up by a specialized forensic case management team. This is compared with the in-jail mental health service in Bucks County, which provides assessment, treatment, and aftercare planning. Thus, this project compared two models that provide a treatment response, with the key difference being diversion vs. treatment in jail.

Project Sponsors: Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA)

Dates: 4/97 to 2/02

Project Staff: Jeffrey Draine, Principal Investigator and Phyllis Solomon, Co-Investigator; Petra Kottsieper & Amy Blank, Research Coordinators

Research Sites: Montgomery and Bucks Counties, Pennsylvania

Project Number: DRAI-97-01

Entry Date: September, 1998

Publications:

1999 Draine J, Solomon P: Describing and evaluating jail diversion services for persons with serious mental illness. Psychiatric Services 50:56-61.

2001 Steadman HJ, Stainbrook KA, Griffin P, Draine J, Dupont R, Horey C: The need for a specialized crisis response location for effective police-based diversion programs. Psychiatric Services 52, 219-222.