Mental health programs for women in prison essay

Introduction

The imprisonment of women with serious mental illness captured the interest and concern of the public. The prisons or jails are not designed to provide services to mental health issues. However, the issues in mental health are one of the priorities of the Federal Bureau of Prisons or BOP. The BOP encourages the women inmates to highly participate in programs to improve their personal growth and to reduce their problems through the effective guidelines of the program. The necessities of women in the detention only received less attention and neglected by health systems and prisons authorities, as well . The mental health programs are aware of the reality that women prisons are clear minority group in prisons worldwide. However, this minority status never justified the ignorance of the basic rights of women. In addition, the gender insensitivity dominates in the criminal justice systems. In 2000, State prisons provided extensive mental health services. The rates of mental health issues reported such as anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, and self-harm or suicide alarm the concerned public. The needs of the clients highly influenced the design of a mental health program for women in prison.
The Mental Health Step Down Program or MHSDP and the Resolve Program or RP are programs that focused on the mental health issues of women in prison. Its models, methods, and principles of the program development and service delivery are sophisticated. The MHSDP is known as a residential treatment program that offers an intermediate level of mental health care for male and female prisoners or inmates with serious mental health problems. Specifically, the program is designed to serve the inmates that do not need the inpatient treatment, but lack the skills to function well in the entire population of the prison setting. The program utilized a sophisticated model that emphasizes on modified therapeutic community cognitive behavioral therapy and skill training. The main objective of the program is to provide evidence-based treatments to inmates who are ill chronically and mentally. In addition, the objective is to maximize the ability of the inmates to function better and minimize relapse or the necessity for inpatient hospitalization. The Resolve Program is known as a cognitive-behavioral program that is designed to concentrate on the trauma-related mental health needs of the women inmates or offenders. Particularly, the program is focused to decrease the occurrence of the trauma-related psychological disorders. In addition, the program seeks to improve the level of functionality of the women inmates and to increase the effectiveness of the treatments. The Resolve program utilized standardized treatment protocols that consist of vital components such as psycho‐educational workshop or trauma in life, brief skill-based treatment group or seeking safety, and the Dialectical Behavioral Therapy. In many female imprisonments, the resolve program is available.
Significant application of models, principles, and needs assessment results strongly drives the program modifications. In terms of the time-frame of the program, it is conducted over twelve to eighteen months. Through the length of the program, the inmates have the chance to participate in the program at any point or any time of their sentence, respectively. The formal program is scheduled half days and five days in a week with the remaining half days that focused on the institution work assignments as the participants are able to perform. Those women inmates with serious mental illness can benefit from the intensive residential treatments in the program. The program operates as modified therapeutic community and it utilizes cognitive-behavioral treatments, skills training, and cognitive rehabilitation. The cases on criminal thinking are catered through the identification of criminal thinking errors that engage in pro-social interactions with the staffs and peers. Every detail of the program works with the psychiatric services to make sure that the participants can receive medication appropriately. In addition, the participants are given the opportunity to create positive relationships with the psychiatrist treating the patient intensively. The content of the program is designed to promote successful reentry in the society at the end of the term of imprisonment. In the resolve program, the women inmates are expected to strongly participate in the program in their first year of imprisonment. The full protocol of the program takes forty weeks approximately to complete the program. However, some occurring conflict can extend the duration of the program if necessary. In addition, the women inmates are provided by the program the options to continue to participate in the skills maintenance group or to continue to practice the healthy coping skills. The program is intended for women inmates with mental illness diagnosis due to severe trauma. The trauma in life workshop is the first stage of the program for women inmates with no history of trauma participants if the institution resources permit the situation. The content of the resolve program focused on the personal resilience development, emotional self-regulation, effective coping skills, and health interpersonal relationships of the women inmates. The respective skills are necessary to attain the educational behavioral, cognitive, and problem-solving interventions.
The finance, administration, and accountability performance have the great impact of the access and quality of clinical mental health services effectively. In 1995, World Health Organization established the Health in Prisons Project or HIPP is committed to reduce the health issues in prisons, especially the women inmates with mental illnesses. Many prisons worldwide provide prevention and programs that offered treatment on mental health and focused on the significant changes for the awareness and support of the programs. The prison mental health programs emphasized treatment for inmates with serious mental illnesses with the most dangerous symptoms. In 1999, the corrections agencies surveyed by the National Institute of Correction, reported that more mental health resources were provided to women inmates who met the predetermined criteria of the serious mental illness than those with lesser necessities. Majority of the agencies used formal assessments to determine that the women inmates have serious mental illness and the inmates received effective programs accordingly. In the Mental Health Step Down Program, the mental health interventions selected programs with strong empirical support with multiple evidence-based program registries. The Resolve Program receives the empirical support for the interventions and utilized program are well-established. Most of the protocols contributed positive results utilized in the administration with the large provider of trauma-related treatments.

Reference

Bergh, B. J., Gatherer, A., & Møller, L. F. (2009). Women’s health in prison: urgent need for improvement in gender equity and social justice. Bull World Health Organ, 87, 406. doi: 10. 2471/BLT. 09. 066928
Federal Bureau of Prisons. (2014, May 21). A Directory of Bureau of Prisons’ National Programs. United States. Retrieved November 27, 2014, from http://www. bop. gov/inmates/custody_and_care/docs/BOPNationalProgramCatalog. pdf
Hills, H., Siegfried, C., & Ickowitz, A. (2004). Effective Prison Mental Health Services: Guidelines To Expand and Improve Treatment. Washington, DC: U. S. Department of Justice: National Institute of Corrections.