Peer-assisted Mental Health Care Inside the Country's Largest Jail: A panel conversation

Heart Forward Conversations from the Heart

Rarely has such a diverse group of people been convened to discuss innovation in the jail setting. This panel occured on April 22, 2021, and was co-sponsored by the UCLA Center for Social Medicine and Humanities and Heart Forward LA.
The power of Zoom – captured as an audio file for this podcast – presented an opportunity to hear about the origins and outcomes of a collaboration between the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department and Correctional Health Services nursing and mental health clinicians which began in 2016. You will hear from officials involved in conceptualizing the pilot and two inmates who have lived embedded in these pods for four years and wrote a book about their role as “mental health assistants.”

Our academic panelists provide a broad overview of the tragedy of incarceration of mentally ill inmates in the U.S. and why policymakers must make community-based treatment a priority to end the endless cycle of homelessness and incarceration of people with serious mental illness.

PANELISTS INCLUDE:

Craigen Armstrong, Mental Health Assistant

Adrian Berumen, Mental Health Assistant

Dr. Philippe Bourgois, Distinguished Professor of Anthropology and Director of Center for Social Medicine, UCLA

Bruce Chase, Assistant Sheriff, Custody Operations, LA County Sheriff’s Department

Joan Hubbell, Mental Health Program Manager, Twin Towers Correctional Facility

Jeremy Levenson, PhD Candidate UCLA Anthropology, Center for Social Medicine; Medical Student Mount Sinai School of Medicine

Moderator: Kerry Morrison, Founder & Project Director, Heart Forward LA