Performance Management in Australia's Public Mental Health Service: A State Based Perspective

This article investigates the implementation of key performance indicators (KPIs) in Western Australia's public mental health system. A nationally agreed performance measurement framework forms part of the much needed reform now taking place within Australia. However, progress in the effective monitoring and reporting of KPIs is slow in most states, including Western Australia. The authors report on the results of a selective case study involving semi‐structured interviews with mental health administrators and offer a more nuanced insight into the intricacies and difficulties involved in performance measurement reform. The principal finding is that effective performance measurement and reporting can be internally problematic, particularly within a fragmented and networked system. This tends to give rise to a conformance‐only approach to performance measurement.     

全面禁食野生动物的法理基础与制度构建

面对新冠疫情全球蔓延,第十三届全国人大常委会第十六次会议表决通过了全面禁食野生动物的决定.全面禁食野生动物的决定主要建立在公共安全与生命伦理两大法理基础之上:前者侧重于社会整体利益的维护与风险规制,是一个功利性标准;而后者则侧重于对生命的尊重和人与自然和谐关系的维护,主要为伦理性标准.现实中,对"野生动物"概念范畴的理...     

Medical data breaches: Notification delayed is notification denied

The EU and the United States have implemented data breach notification rules that cover the health sectors. Nevertheless, data breach incidents involving medical data continue to rise, especially in the US and the UK. The HITECH Act, Pub. L. 111-5 Title XIII is the first federal health breach notification law in the US to be characterized by less government intrusions, while the revised EU Privacy Directive, 2009/136/EC calls for tougher privacy protection for data held by electronic communication providers. While the EU law sets a global de facto standard, the law remains toothless without strong enforcement mechanisms.     

加强高校学生工作档案管理

高校学生工作档案管理是高校工作中不可缺少的重要组成部分,对提升学生工作的效率和质量起着十分重要的作用。新形势下,高校学生工作档案管理存在业务管理不规范、制度不健全、人员素质不高等问题,因此,必须通过创新管理理念、健全管理制度、提高人员综合素质、加强档案信息化建设等途径不断加强和改进,以使其更好地服务于高校的建设和发展。     

Procedural justice in mental health court: an investigation of the relation of perception of procedural justice to non-adherence and termination

Mental health courts (MHCs) operate on the principles of procedural justice (PJ). PJ highlights the importance of process over outcomes in encounters with authority. Subjective perceptions of having voice, being heard by decision-makers, and being treated with respect and concern by figures of authority are influential in assessment of fairness and in cooperation with decisions, regardless of favorability of the outcome. In this paper, we investigate MHC participant perception of PJ in interactions with MHC staff and the association between perceptions and recidivism (i.e. time in jail, new arrests, and probation violations), treatment adherence, and MHC termination. Participants from two MHC programs (n?=?80) took part in this study. Results suggest that perception of PJ during interactions with the entire MHC team is significantly associated with program termination, but not with participant behaviors during MHC. Implications for MHC practitioners and researchers are discussed.     

Service utilization in a cohort of criminal justice-involved men: implications for case management and justice systems

In the era of re-entry, a great deal of attention has been paid to the ‘risk-need-responsivity’ model. Most attention to the utilization of services designed to meet need has focused on post-release behaviors. However, little attention has been paid to the pre-incarceration utilization of services that might influence receptivity to post-release utilization. Using constructs borrowed from health services utilization, the current paper examines the associations among CJ-involvement, social and health services utilization, and health status in a cohort of CJ-involved men living in the community. Results from the current cohort, combined with those of previous research, suggest that follow-through on services by released individuals’ remains problematic. Suggestions for future research and questions about the role of criminal justice agencies in improving follow-through are raised.     

Quality of criminal responsibility reports submitted to the Hawaii judiciary

This paper is the third in a series of research reports on quality of forensic mental health evaluations submitted to the Hawaii judiciary. Previous studies examined quality of reports assessing competency to stand trial (CST) and post-acquittal conditional release, in felony defendants undergoing court-ordered examinations. Utilizing a 44-item quality coding instrument, this study examined quality of criminal responsibility reports in a sample of 150 forensic mental health evaluations conducted between 2006 and 2010 by court-appointed panels. Raters attained high levels of agreement in training and quality coding. Similar to the previous studies, overall quality of reports was mediocre, falling below the .80 quality criterion score for report elements, regardless of evaluator professional identification or employment status. Level of agreement between evaluators and judicial sanity determinations was “fair” using Cicchetti's (1994) standards for interpretation of intra-class correlations. Level of agreement was lower than previously published findings for CST reports and better than conditional release reports. Reasons for mediocre report quality and “fair” inter-rater agreement are discussed, including the fact that criminal responsibility evaluations are complex, retrospective in nature, and involve significant degrees of inference. In contrast to CST evaluations, assessment of criminal responsibility involves a mental state at the time of the offense evaluation. Threats to reliability in forensic reports are discussed. Suggestions for improvement of report quality are proffered, including standardization of procedures and report format and use of forensic assessment instruments.     

Mental health specialized probation caseloads: Are they effective?

With the large and growing number of persons with mental illnesses under probation supervision, a form of specialized probation called specialized mental health caseload (SMHC) has been implemented. This study explores the effectiveness of a prototypic SMHC implemented statewide. A quasi-experimental design was used to compare criminal justice, mental health, and community engagement outcomes among three caseloads: a newly established SMHC supervising no more than 30 clients per officer (N = 1367); an established SMHC supervising roughly 50 clients per officer (N = 495); and a traditional caseload of clients receiving mental health treatment and supervised by officers with average caseloads of over 130 clients (N = 5453). Using a mixed methods approach, we found that the SMHC was implemented with high adherence to fidelity, and comparisons based on different caseload samples generally support the effectiveness of the specialized mental health caseload, particularly on criminal justice outcomes. Future studies using random assignment are needed to examine the connection among mental health symptoms, compliance with treatment and probation supervision, and recidivism.     

Community Wise: Paving the way for empowerment in community reentry

Theoretical approaches traditionally applied in mental health and criminal justice interventions fail to address the historical and structural context that partially explains health disparities. Community Wise was developed to address this gap. It is a 12 week group intervention informed by Critical Consciousness Theory and designed to prevent substance abuse, related health risk behaviors, psychological distress, and reoffending among individuals with a history of incarceration and substance abuse. This paper reports findings from the first implementation and pilot evaluation of Community Wise in two community-based organizations. This pre–posttest evaluation pilot-tested Community Wise and used findings to improve the intervention. Twenty-six participants completed a phone and clinical screening, baseline, 6- and 12-week follow-ups, and a focus group at the end of the intervention. Measures assessed participants' demographic information, psychological distress, substance use, criminal offending, HIV risk behaviors, community cohesion, community support, civic engagement, critical consciousness, ethnic identification, group cohesion, client satisfaction, and acquired treatment skills. Research methods were found to be feasible and useful in assessing the intervention. Results indicated that while Community Wise is a promising intervention, several changes need to be made in order to enhance the intervention. Community Wise is a new approach where oppressed individuals join in critical dialogue, tap into existing community resources, and devise, implement and evaluate their own community solutions to structural barriers.     

Offending and Early Death in the Cambridge Study in Delinquent Development

Criminal offending has many negative outcomes. Researchers have recently begun to consider the impact offending has on offenders' health, with a few studies focusing on differential mortality risk. Yet, prior research has been limited due to selective samples, restricted range of follow-up time period, limited set of explanatory variables, and lack of theoretical guidance. This paper examines the risk of early death among 411 South London males in the Cambridge Study in Delinquent Development followed into their late 50s. Attention is paid not only to differential risk of death between nonoffenders and offenders, but also to the risk within the population of offenders and through consideration of theoretical frameworks and associated predictor variables. Results show that high-rate chronic offenders evince the highest risk of death, an effect that continues even after controlling for childhood individual and environmental risk factors as well as participation in a range of analogous behaviors.