The province of Saskatchewan announced it is investing $360,000 in the Justice Mental Health Community Support Program in the province.
It was being touted as the first program of its kind in Canada - a way to address serious violent crime in communities across the province. The program is designed to assist those with chronic mental illness, focusing on the most high risk and violent offenders.
It is seen as an important component of the Serious Violent Offender Initiative launched by the government in the fall of 2011.
The provincial government is partnering with the Canadian Mental Health Association of Saskatchewan for the program, which will be based out of Saskatoon, Regina and in the Battlefords.
Provincial Minister Of Corrections And Policing Christine Tell as well as Dave Nelson, executive director of CMHA Sask. division, signed the agreement for the program at a ceremony on the Saskatchewan Hospital grounds Wednesday.
The plan was described by Tell as providing supervision and rehabilitation to stabilize offenders "so they can live crime free and contribute to their communities."
The program objectives will include monitoring medication, developing healthy and responsible interpersonal relations, developing career interests, maintaining psychological health and promoting engagement of community-based treatment and services addressing risk factors that promote offending.
The program will work closely with adult probation, municipal police services, Crown prosecutors, RCMP, treatment and community service providers and family members.
The result is anticipated to be day-to-day community supervision, support, rehabilitation and offender accountability, Tell told the audience.
"Generally speaking, mental illness does not cause violence," Tell said. "But to be successful with offenders with chronic mental illness, we must address issues that directly contribute to offending, such as substance abuse, and provide support to mitigate the negative effect of their mental illness."
In speaking to reporters, Tell compared it to the HUB program used to promote safer communities, except in this case it's "for serious violent offenders with mental health issues."
"They're bringing all these experts together, all these partners together, to try and figure out how best to address an individual who is a serious violent offender, an adult, who has serious mental health issues."
She called it "another piece of the puzzle to address a component of our crime that we've never truly addressed before."
Nelson said CMHA will be working closely with all the different partners in the program and have a staff person located in the probation offices in North Battleford, and provide direct support to a case load of 10 people in "a fairly intensive way," he said.
That support will range from "ensuring that they have their medications looked after, they have connections up to the formal mental health system, they have a reasonable place to live, helping them with any kind of problems they might have with the landlord, all the kinds of things that are very difficult for people coming out of the correctional system."
Nelson called it a necessary thing that his association has for some time been calling for -support for people who have problems with the justice system who also have mental health issues.
He told reporters the plan is for the Justice Mental Health Community Support Program to be ready to go by September, with staff hiring and preparations happening during the summer months.
