Fostering Community-Engaged Research on Criminal Legal Innovations with Logic Models.

There is a persistent disconnect between research and practice, both in the social work profession as well as in the criminal legal system. Community-engaged research has been suggested as an approach to bridge this divide, but specific tools are needed to integrate research and practice efforts. This article presents three distinct logic model development processes that occurred in collaborative research and practice efforts in the context of criminal legal programming, including prosecutor-led diversion programs, a high-intensity drug court, and a multiagency justice and mental health collaborative.

"You feed and water a rose bush and eventually it blossoms": Constructions of self-transformation among mental health court defendants.

This study qualitatively examined adaptive responses to mental health court mandates through individual interviews with defendants in a mental health court (n = 31). Thematic analysis of interview data revealed that defendants engaged in meaning-making to comprehend and adapt to the perceived programmatic demands of mental health court. Programmatic burdens, court-enforced accountability, and intrinsic rewards were themes that converged to form a distinct adaptive response: construction of self-transformation narratives.

Building a therapeutic relationship between probation officers and probationers with serious mental illnesses.

Objective: The purpose of this study was to engage in a collaborative process with a variety of stakeholders to develop the Brief Intervention to Promote Service Engagement (BIPSE), which aims to enhance the therapeutic relationship between probation officers and probationers with serious mental illnesses (SMI).

Methods: The BIPSE intervention was developed through a multistage "design for implementation" process, including a series of stakeholder meetings, observations of probation supervision sessions, incorporating existing intervention approaches, and workshopping initial BIPSE components with three randomly selected officers from a specialized mental health probation unit. Acceptability and feasibility of BIPSE components were assessed through focus groups with probation officers, additional observations of probation sessions, and qualitative interviews with probationers with SMI.