Our Work in the Community

Members of IRC’s psychiatric and psychosocial teams are regularly invited to present papers and serve as presenters at professional mental health conferences.

IRC’s work at the JTDC has led to expanded involvement in the community, including:

• Presentations at educational conferences
  Members of IRC’s psychiatric and psychosocial teams are regularly invited to present papers and serve as presenters at professional mental health conferences. See Professional Activities for a listing of recent efforts.



• The Second Chance Act
  The Isaac Ray Center, Juvenile Temporary Detention Center and Cook County Probation department collaborated on submiitng a Second Chance Act grant proposal and were awarded a $750,000 grant to assist our residents in their transition back to the community.
  
  This grant seeks to establish a comprehensive, integrated case management and service delivery system for adjudicated youth currently under the supervision of the Cook County Juvenile Probation Department (CCJPD) who are detained in the Cook County Juvenile Temporary Detention Center (CCJTDC) and will be transitioned back to the community. This system innovation will allow the CCJPD and CCJTDC to, collaboratively, identify and prioritize needed services to high risk and needy youths, specifically those with serious mental health and substance use problems as co-occurring disorders.
  
  The proposed system recognizes that treatment is most effective if planning and service delivery is coordinated amongst all involved parties (probation, detention, mental health and substance abuse, community providers, and family) and information is readily shared across these agencies on a consent-based, need-to-know basis. The system will implement needs assessment, re-entry service planning, and treatment delivery processes that are consistent with current research on outcome effectiveness (evidence-based).



• Bridge Clinic
  The IRC/JTDC has offered to conduct a pilot program that would last for six months to provide psychiatric, mental health and family services to residents to facilitate care for youths in the juvenile justice system who were leaving detention centers and returning back to their communities. This initiative exemplifies a partnership between juvenile detention, probation and community primary care clinics in underserved areas. The model, conceptualized as a “bridging service,” was developed by IRC on the premise that a resident's returning back to their communities are not always able to access a sufficient level of metal health care/follow-up in a timely manner. It is also a way to better transfer the care and therapeutic relationship a youth was benefitting from at the JTDC to mental health providers in the community.