Hello and welcome. I'm Dr. Amy Cohen, a clinical psychologist and the director of SMI Advisor. I am pleased that you are joining us today for SMI Advisor's webinar, How Treatment Court Professionals Can Effectively Build Relationships and Interact with Behavioral Health and Court Treatment Teams to Better Serve Justice-Involved Clients. Next slide. SMI Advisor, also known as the Clinical Support System for Serious Mental Illness, is an APA and SAMHSA initiative devoting to helping clinicians implement evidence-based care for those living with serious mental illness. Working with experts from across the SMI clinician community, our interdisciplinary effort has been designed to help you get the answers you need to care for your patients. Next slide. Today's webinar has been designated for one AMA PRA Category 1 credit for physicians, one continuing education for psychologists, and one continuing education credit for social workers. Credit for participating in today's webinar will be available until February 13, 2023. Next slide. Slides from the presentation today are available in the handout area found in the lower portion of your control panel. Select the link to download the PDF. Next slide. And please feel free to submit your questions throughout the presentation by typing them into the question area found in the lower portion of your control panel. We'll reserve 10 to 15 minutes at the end of the presentation for Q&A with the experts. Next slide. Now it is my pleasure to introduce you to the faculty for today's webinar, Tony Sanchez, Laura McCoy, and Judge Charles Auslander. Tony Sanchez is the Director of Partnerships at FACES and Voices of Recovery. He played a major role in the implementation of Georgia's recovery-focused change training, assisting in the behavioral health safety net providers in operationalizing recovery. Mr. Sanchez works tirelessly to enhance and develop recovery-oriented systems of care for all people, and it has been my pleasure at SMI Advisor to be able to work with him very closely over the last several years. Tony, let me hand it over to you to introduce your colleagues. Thank you, Dr. Cohen. So it is my honor and my pleasure to introduce Laura McCoy. She is a Case Management Specialist for Athens-Clarke County. She also serves as a Forensic Peer Mentor for the Western Judicial Circuit Felony Drug Court in Georgia. And I also get the opportunity to introduce Charles Auslander, and he has served at Athens-Clarke County as a judge for 17 years. Judge Auslander has been an advocate for rehabilitation and restoration as alternatives to incarcerations, fines, and other traditional sentencing methods used in our criminal justice system. He has focused on identifying and addressing the underlying cause of criminal behavior, whether it be substance use disorder or mental health diagnosis or past trauma. And I have to say, as a person in long-term recovery, I think about the things that have helped me in my recovery. And one of the things that it's living in a recovery-ready community, and I have the honor and pleasure to live in Athens-Clarke County, Georgia, where both Judge Auslander and Laura McCoy reside. So it is, again, my pleasure to introduce Judge Auslander and Laura McCoy. Thank you for leading today's webinar. And I'll pass it on to Judge Auslander. Thank you, Tony. Laura and I, and Tony, we have no relationships or conflicts of interest related to the subject matter of this presentation. I want to thank Dr. Cohen and SMI Advisors and the APA and SAMHSA for inviting myself and Laura to talk to this amazing group of professionals. I love talking with treatment professionals because you're the ones out there doing the real work and really making significant changes, improving our communities. So our learning objectives are we share many clients in the judicial system, in the treatment world. We have a lot of clients that cross into both of those worlds. So how can professionals in both of those environments work better together to help our clients? And so one of the things that I know we focus a lot on in the judicial system in the areas that I'm in is learning about treatment. But one of the things we wanted to try to bring today to treatment was to learn a little bit about the judicial system and how they can help improve their relationship with us so we can benefit and we can better respond to what you're trying to do. And so I thought we would just start with the basic of how you'd work on a relationship with another participant or another profession. And it's just really understanding that profession and who you're working with. So I thought we would look at the background and education of judges or legal professionals. And as I go through this, I'll just use the term judges, but I mean judges and lawyers and other people in the legal system that might be interacting with your clients. It's important that we understand their values and goals so we can find those connections and where our values and goals match up. And then once we know what the values and goals are, we can present information that will align with both parties' values and goals. So I'll start with judges. I mean, judges background may be a little different than most of the people that you work with on a day-to-day basis in your treatment circles. And some of them may be similar, but some may be different. I mean, generally judges have had a very supportive and stable environment. They've had access to resources and opportunity and education. They've been trained in laws and rules and understanding the constitution and protecting rights and being fair. But I went to three years of law school to become a lawyer, and I did not take one class on behavior change, on psychology, on understanding why people made decisions. Judges and people in my profession generally try to make rational choices. We evaluate rules. We kind of look at the pros and the cons. We consider negative consequences, and we try to make a sound decision. But the people that come in front of us may not have that same decision-making process. I'm sure you see that every single day. So while judges have a lot of, their background and training and decision-making process clearly doesn't match that of many of the people that appear before us who are having difficulties with behavioral health issues, whether it's substance use or mental health disorders. And what I will assert here is that those people making the decisions in the legal world, judges and lawyers and so forth, they may not be properly educated, they may not be properly equipped, or they may not understand what is occurring with behavioral health issues to make good, sound decisions to help the people in front of them. So how do we bridge that gap? And that's where you come in. So let me tell you what the values and the goals of judges are, because if we know what the values and the goals of judges are, then as you are advocating for your clients or working on behalf of your clients, we can utilize that. So in the criminal justice system, of course, overarching goal, public safety. We want to make sure that people, the people in the community generally have peace and tranquility and are protected. So whether that means that they're safe from somebody trespassing on their property, committing a violent crime against them, or whether the roads are safe from somebody who's impaired. One of the main goals of all decisions we make is to make sure each of us in the community is safe, is at peace, and has a tranquil life. One of the other things that's very important to judges is community expectations. All of us are public servants. So whether we are elected or whether we're appointed by other officials, it is important to us, what do the people of our communities want? We want to make sure that to the extent possible, we match up any legal decision we make in a courtroom with what our community expects. We want to make sure we're making effective choices, choices that work. No professional wants to make a decision that doesn't work. And finally, one of the overarching goals all of us have is we want to make sure we show mercy and compassion to the human element in front of us, and that we do our best to help each person keeping in mind all of our other goals. So I've kind of gone over what the goals of judges are, but every treatment professional that I've talked to generally has the same goals. I've never met a treatment professional that's not interested in public safety. I know that treatment professionals understand the expectations of the community. I know all treatment professionals want their decisions and the modalities they're using to be effective. And definitely if a person is in the treatment profession, they have mercy and compassion for the humans and for the clients in front of them. So when we're trying to cross communicate between our different professions, we generally have the same values and goals. We may use very different languages and we may use very different strategies and tools to effectuate that, but we have the same values and goals. And so that's where I think our number one starting point is. And one of the brief tips I wanted to kind of cover today before we get into the rest of our content is how do you take some of the goals that the judicial system and treatment have and kind of articulate what you're doing so that people in the legal world can understand that what you're doing meets their goals. So first, let's talk about public safety. I think anytime you have an opportunity to present on behalf of a client, whether that's by letter in person or just advocate to another person on behalf of a client, we want to target why what you're doing is making the public safer. You're utilizing modalities that are addressing the underlying cause of behavior that continues to bring the person in contact with the justice system. You would want to highlight any supervised or contact you have with the person. Every time a person has contact with you, they're more likely to be in a better place and have somebody have an eyes on them than if you were not present. You want to talk about any enhanced services you provide. Do you provide drug screens? Do you provide medication management to make sure they're getting the medication they want? Are you providing the medication that will help with their symptoms, whether they're substance use or mental health symptoms? Are you providing services that are going to help their stability, such as housing services, education services, employment services, or peer support services, things that will help them on a day-to-day life be more stable? All of us know these pieces can make the public safer if we can properly articulate that. Another thing that courts are looking for when they're working with treatment professionals or with anyone is the willingness to collaborate and provide information. Assuming all the proper releases are in place, whether through HIPAA or 42 CFR, they want to know that if we're going to make a decision to send someone where they will be getting a treatment alternative versus another alternative, that the person won't just disappear and we'll never hear from them again. We want to know that we'll get regular updates. We want to know that if something good is going on, we'll learn about it. That's obviously a good way to reinforce the effectiveness of your program. But also, if a person is struggling or maybe didn't appear one day, that we'll get that information too. So, we know that we're getting an honest report. And even if I get a report that somebody may have missed something or someone may have gone into a brief relapse, as long as I know they've remained connected with that agency, I'd much rather get that than not hear anything at all. Emphasize community expectations. Educate your judges on what your community expects. I can tell you, this is one thing that Tony did for me. When I first became a judge 20 years ago, to me, I didn't see the recovery community. I didn't know the recovery community. To me, it was invisible. To me, it was anonymous. Every now and again, I'd have someone come in for a client or person appearing before me. They might tell me their first name. They would say, this person's in AA. He's doing pretty good. But the impression I always got is that in Athens, at that time, you didn't see the recovery community. If somebody went into recovery, they almost became invisible. Well, one day, I was at this huge awards banquet. The mayor was there. Commissioners were there. There was business leaders there. And this amazing person got up and told their story. And they told us how they had worked their way through the criminal justice system. They'd been in jail. And now, they had this great new lease on life because they'd been offered an opportunity for treatment. And that was Tony Sanchez. And I sat that day. And I saw Tony speak. And I said, oh, my goodness. This gentleman is so courageous. He has brought recovery in front of every one of our community leaders. I had never heard anything like that. And there have been so many other people that have come after Tony because Tony was brave enough in our community to do that, that people like myself learned about recovery from him. And in Athens now, and the way that Tony put it, we're a recovery community. Recovery is in the news. Recovery is out front. People glamorize recovery. It's on social media. There are recovery events. If you're not in the recovery community, they make you want to be in there. People who are in recovery are proud. And it is all over. And our judges see that. And so, our judges now know what our community expects. So, we need to emphasize what our community expects and also work to change that within our community by obviously bringing that out. Obviously, you want to highlight the services that you provide, that they're effective. You want to highlight the success stories you have. And especially when you have a court-connected client that is successful, you want to make sure to let those in the courts know that they were successful. And they'll say, hey, that was successful for this person. I'm definitely willing to use this service again and for the next person. And of course, something that all of you are great at is humanizing the person in front of you and letting the court know that this is a real person that has real struggles, whether it's a challenge in their family or with their employment, with their transportation, with their housing, that this person has real needs that are leading to what's going on. And what we are offering them will definitely help address that. So, these are all kind of common values that we can use to bring what you do on a day-to-day basis and help educate us judges who haven't been properly trained, but we know what our values are. So, how do you do this? This can seem daunting. Courtrooms are scary. Courthouses are usually an inconvenient location in town. There could be lines to get in there. There could be metal detectors. It's not easy. How do you advocate for your clients that are involved in the system? Well, I don't want to say that you have to come to court all the time or even at all, but of course, anytime that you could attend with a client and be just present sitting next to a client, somebody will notice. When I have someone that's coming up before me and somebody's sitting next to them, I'm always wondering who it is. It's even better if the attorney will point out, well, XYZ from their treatment center or their peer support or from their recovery community has come here today. Even better if that person's willing to speak or if that's not possible, which I completely understand, that they provided a letter from the program they're in that says they've been attending this. This is what the plan is. They're doing well. They've struggled, but that we have that communication. So, sending those updates, sending those letters on behalf of the client that show that you're present. Look for opportunities to meet judges. I know sometimes we look scary and we can be intimidating, but some of us are real people and we can actually be nice and we just don't have the same opportunity to maybe interact with people in the treatment world. So, look for opportunities, whether it's an opportunity to come with a client or whether there's something going on at the courthouse or you have something going on at your facility. Is it a ceremony? Is it a dedication? Is it an open house? Is it a graduation? Is it something that you can invite judges to where they can come see your work, meet you face to face, and really understand what you're doing? Look at talking with a court administrator. Do the judges have monthly or regular meetings where you could come and present on your program for five or ten minutes and just let them know what resources you offer? If that doesn't work, hand write a letter to all the judges. Judges want to know what resources are out in the community and they also want to know a little bit about them. So, if they can meet someone and have some confidence in the person they're talking to, they're going to be more likely to make referrals or to accept when a person is trying to seek that service. I would say don't just leave it at the judges. There's public defenders, probation officers, prosecutors. There's other folks in the courthouse that will be happy to talk with you and can definitely learn and definitely be visible in the community when there are community events. And I know a courthouse event may sound pretty boring. I can agree they can be pretty boring, but if you can kind of keep an eye on whatever's going on in your community, whether maybe it's a swearing-in ceremony or they're dedicating something or somebody's having something going on, just attend, introduce yourself, meet people. That's how some of these relationships are formed. Now, I'm going to kind of shift. I wanted to start out a little bit just we don't ever really talk about how does treatment relate to legal professionals. And so, we kind of talked about that a little bit, but we're really going to shift now. And we're doing this webinar and I know that you'll hear about another webinar in January that kind of builds off of what Laura and I and Tony are doing here today. But let me kind of pose this to you. What if decisions in the criminal justice system were made by a team of professionals? And what if that team of professionals had someone trained in treatment that was sitting at the table with their voice being heard? And what if in addition to that, there was a person who had lived experience at that table that could provide a perspective from a person who's walked the same walk as the people were making decisions about? Well, these teams actually exist out there in the legal field. And maybe some of you are familiar with treatment courts. They started back in the early 90s. I could present on them for a long time, but you can trust me that they are in every state and I'm certain that if they're not in your jurisdiction, they're in a jurisdiction very close to you. It's a team of professionals that starts with the judge, the lawyers, probation, the law enforcement, but it includes treatment and peer support so that when we're making decisions about people with mental health and substance use disorders, we can have all professions providing input. And one of the main pieces that we here in Athens and our treatment team have added recently is having someone with lived experience, having someone who's been through this and our team added Laura McCord. And so we're going to kind of transition to her story now. And after her story, we'll talk about how our clients have benefited and how have our professionals that are part of this court, how they've benefited. So Laura, let me turn it over to you and I am going to stop sharing. Hello everyone. My name is Laura McCoy and I'm a woman living in recovery. And what that means to me is for my whole life, like I've toted around a lot of labels. They started kind of young, you know, junkie, convict, crazy. But today I have labels like sister, wife, responsible, productive member of society. And I like those labels a lot better. You know, I grew up, I considered it a pretty normal childhood and, you know, mom worked at the bar. My dad worked on a shrimp boat. They sold drugs and my dad went to federal prison by the time I was three. So, you know, just a normal life. There was some childhood trauma involved in all that throughout my life. I never really considered my life traumatic until someone really pointed it out to me. I started using at a very young age. I started using substances at the age of 11. By the time I was 13, I was an intravenous user. And I can remember like having a tank top on with track marks and just accepting the fact that I was a junkie. I made it to prison for the first time when I was 18. There wasn't really any kind of drug courts or anything like that in place to support me in that. And so I've probably been in everything that the criminal justice has to offer. I've been to boot camp. I've been to prison. I went to a regional substance abuse treatment, but basically that's just rehab in prison. And I would always get out and go right back to the same thing. I lived in a very rural area and there wasn't a whole lot of resources. There was absolutely no support. And I did not know that there was a whole world of recovery that I could tap into. And I remember getting locked up and finding out that I was pregnant at 29 and I was devastated. I was shocked and I didn't know what to do. I was at Athens-Clarke County Jail and my water broke. I went to the hospital from the jail and I lost my first daughter, Charlie. When I came back to the jail, I was just completely broken. And I remember going in front of the judge and getting sentenced to RSAT, which is the regional substance abuse treatment. It's rehab in prison. I went through that program and I got out and I thought if I could just get away from Athens that I would be okay. So I went to what I found out was like a recovery house. The people at the RSAT had told me, you know, do something different. Get away from where you're from, this will help. And I went to Marietta, Georgia to a recovery house and I stayed abstinent for a while. I can't say that I was really in recovery, I just wasn't using drugs. And I got pregnant again. And I thought I did everything right. I didn't smoke cigarettes, I didn't drink caffeine or anything like that. And my second daughter, Araya, was born January 1st, 2015. And she lived for 11 days. She passed January the 11th and I just kind of shut down and hid from the world for a while. I lost my mom February 3rd of 2015 and that was the last thing I needed to say why I don't need to live. And I just dove right into substance misuse and not caring about myself. And I probably caught, I had four pending charges in four different counties and I had gotten locked up again in Clark County because I made it back to Athens from Marietta. And I remember going in front of the judge and he just kind of sat back and took his glasses apart and he said, I don't know what else to do with you. And at that point, I had never felt like I wanted to do anything different. I just wanted him to throw away the key. I felt like a bad dog. And he wanted me to go back to the RSAT that I had been to because I had done well a few months after I had gotten out and I told him that I wasn't interested. And so I remember he brought me back to court from the jail every two weeks and asked me if I wanted to go to RSAT and I was like, nope, I'm not going, send me back to prison. And then one day I come to court and my attorney spoke for me when I couldn't speak for myself. And she said, what about felony drug court? And I was, I didn't know what to say. I had never been in any type of like real treatment program. And I said, well, if I mess up drug court, he'll just send me to prison and leave me alone. And so I signed into felony drug court and it wasn't perfect. I still had sanctions and consequences for behaviors because, you know, I just, we just took the dope away. We hadn't addressed any of my mental health issues. We hadn't addressed any of my trauma issues. And so I had sanctions and I was in and out of jail for the first few months of felony drug court when I kind of just looked at the coordinator and I was like, look, I don't know what to give you. I don't know how to give you what you want. And they wanted a complete life change. And I didn't understand that. I wasn't a person that needed rehabilitation. I needed habilitation. And so I went to jail and I was like, you can take this program and, you know, stick it where the sun don't shine. I was in there for about two weeks and my counselors come to see me and they said, you can't see your nephew through this glass. He like tapped on the window. He said, you know, you can't see your nephew through this glass. And I knew that I didn't want to do dope anymore. I knew that I didn't want to be sick anymore. I just did not know how to give them the life change that they so desperately wanted for me. And I was like, what can I do? How can I change this? And they put me on what they now call an accountability support plan. And I had to enroll in trauma therapy. I had regular counseling once a week. I was in a more recognition, reconnect, reconnection therapy class. I had court once a week and I had to speak to a sponsor every morning and a woman in recovery every evening. And I did that for a few months and like the lights started to come on. The trauma that I, I did a very hard trauma therapy, EMDR, I don't, rapid eye desensitization something. And it changed my whole life. And I was able to make it through the rest of drug court. And I wanted something to kind of hold me accountable after drug court because, you know, I was an institutionalized individual, like I could go through a program, I could be a good inmate. And so I heard about this training. Tony Sanchez is actually a certified addiction recovery empowerment specialist. And that is through the Georgia Council of Substance Abuse. I actually was able to do that training right before I graduated felony drug court. They supported me through everything. And that training really opened my eyes to, I'm not a bad person. Some bad things happened and I've made my decisions, but there is wellness in life. And through that training, I was actually able to kind of dive deeper into, you know, some of the mental health stuff that I had going on. I started seeing not only a counselor, but a psychologist. And I was able to find freedom with my mental health. I stopped entering the criminal justice system. And I guess I got started, like volunteering. There's a organization, a recovery community organization in Athens called People Living in Recovery. And I started volunteering there just to be around other people in recovery and support my own recovery. And I worked there eventually. I volunteered there for three months and then I was able to actually be employed there. We did support groups and peer check-ins, different things like that. And then I got involved with the Georgia Mental Health Consumer Network and I was actually able to get a certified peer specialist certification. And then the one I'm most proud of is the Forensic Peer Mentor. And that is for individuals who are criminally justice involved. And it's a week training on, you know, how to speak to individuals who are criminally justice involved, how to walk into a probation office with somebody, how to talk to judges, and how to move forward in supporting somebody who's getting out from behind razor wire basically and re-entering society. This changed my whole life. I did go to work for a community mental health, a community service board. And I was doing street outreach for individuals experiencing homelessness. And what I experienced the most was individuals who are getting arrested for criminal trespassing. And I can remember one of the guys coming to talk to me about, he had to go to court. He needed a way to court and he asked me if I would go with him. And so I started going in front of the judges that I had been in front of before and advocating for individuals saying, like, this isn't just, like, they're just not being a drain on society. Like, they have nowhere to go or, you know, there might be some underlying mental health or there could be an issue with alcohol. And so I was able to advocate for people who were in my exact situation when they just felt like they were just a bad dog and the world was throwing them away. And I think the most beautiful part of it is the judges who had seen me at my worst respected me and I could go in front of them and say, hey, look, he started a safety plan. He's moved his camp. He hasn't had police contact in two weeks. And it started to move forward and I was actually able to get someone into court and the judge dropped eight criminal trespassing charges because the guy, he showed up, you know, he just showed up to court and he stopped having police contact. And I thought that was the most beautiful thing that I had ever been a part of. I worked with the felony drug court that I graduated from. They asked me to be a mentor to individuals in the early phases who started, like, having trouble. You know, that I had a person that I called every night that had time and recovery. And so now I'm able to be that person for the participants. I can't say how much this work has changed my life. It hasn't always been easy. I've had my struggles in recovery. I've had my ups and downs with my mental health. I have not reentered the criminal justice system since 2015, November 24th, 2015. I have not reentered the criminal justice system. And as hard as I pushed for to get dope and to break the law, I pushed that hard for my own recovery and the peers that I have and the participants that are criminally justice about now. Thank you for listening to my story. And Laura may have left out one piece of her story, but she will bring it full circle, is that after she began working with the felony drug court from which she graduated and was working as a street outreach liaison for community service, she applied for a job with my treatment court. And we ended up hiring her full-time as a case manager and peer support specialist. And so she went from the person that we were serving to the person who is serving our clients. And she has been an unbelievable addition to our program. And so I think she and I now are going to talk a little bit about how her addition to our program full-time has helped our clients and helped people like me and our treatment professionals. So, Laura, I think let's first talk about from a perspective of your interactions with our clients. And what I'll describe to our professionals on the line, we specifically run an accountability court for the people with substance use disorders. Many of them have co-occurring disorders, so they're coming into our program either right out of jail or have avoided jail to come into a program that have a significant substance use disorder or a co-occurring mental health disorder. And we're trying to get them from instability to a life of recovery. So tell us about some of the successes you've had with our clients. So well, I feel like one of the biggest successes that I've had is actually working here, like where I used to get brought in the back door in chains. I actually have an office now, but there was an individual just the other day who had struggled with a new use and me and her have such similar experiences. And one experience, you know, in particular, her story is so parallel to mine involving stepdad. And I was able to advocate to her how important the trauma therapy that I got was, like how invaluable it was. And now, like she's almost excited about going to group and going to counseling where, you know, before she's just completely shut down, she didn't trust anybody. And that comes from, you know, a life of trauma. One of the other individuals that I've had encounters with, he reminds me a lot of myself because he thinks he's headstrong. I got to do this. I'm doing so good. I'm doing so good. But he hit a point where, you know, the downside of his diagnosis, like he was symptomatic and he was so ashamed of himself. And we just sat down and we even talked about like how it made her body feel. You know, when this starts to happen, how do I feel inside? Like my chest gets tight. My voice gets shaky. My hands get shaky. You know, my hands get clammy. And he thought that he could just go to the gym and be okay. But what we were able to do with him, instead of like he missed some things which caused him to come in for violation hearing, instead of doing like the traditional, you know, community or bench duty or different sanctions that the court usually imposes on him, we sat down and there is a community support team through the community service board that I used to work for. And it's actually like a hospital without walls. And he was able to get involved with that team and find resources in a community that he was completely unaware of. And he's just really excited. Like, you know, he has his ups and downs, just like I feel like everybody does, but he's seeing it not as he's a bad person or he did something bad. It's just him accepting all the parts of him and being okay with that. And then one more of the guys that I work with has been in and out of the system like I had. Like, never had a chance at treatment or an opportunity to move through a program. He's always been sent to jail or sent to prison. You know, don't pass go, don't collect $200. You just go here to this cell. And me speaking with him, we were able to communicate some of our experiences like going into the jail or entering into prison. And I told him my experience through felony drug court and how I saw it as just a sentence like I've done, okay, I've got two years here or six months here and I just go and do my time. But what we were able to have a conversation about was this isn't just doing time. This isn't just another sentence. This is an opportunity to have a life change that he's never had a chance at. And it just really gives me hope that, you know, the system is changing. Like we're not just numbers anymore. We're people with names and, you know, lives and children and issues and successes. And I love that. And from a court's perspective, we've seen an incredible difference when we've hired Laura to the relationship we have with the clients we serve. Because generally in the court system, it is more of a adversarial relationship. And our treatment team, the whole philosophy is to try to get beyond adversarial and work as a team and partner with the participants. But still most of us are from a profession that our clients don't trust or may not have confidence in or may have had difficulties with before. And what we've noticed since we've added Laura is that there's automatically a person on their team that they feel like an alliance with. I understand her. I trust her. She's gone through this. She's not a lawyer. She's not probation. She's not a law enforcement officer. No offense clinicians. She's not a clinician trying to help me, but she's somebody like me. And we've immediately seen that. And in the courtroom settings, they're saying, well, I talked to Laura. Laura said this. I mean, her name is, they're calling her when they're having relapse. They're calling her when they're having cravings to even think about it. So that's what the amazing successes we're seeing with our clients. One of the pieces we wanted to build on today is how does it help people like me? How does it help the judges and the lawyers? And it has helped me more than I ever would have expected. I understood what peer support was, but I didn't understand how incredibly valuable it was for our clients, but for me personally. With having Laura on the team, she gives us an insight into what our clients are thinking. And she relayed a story about the person that had a similar experience with her. We were having a discussion. This person had some new criminal charges that in the past might have had them removed from our program. And we were really trying to decide as a team, how do we respond? All of the professions went around and kind of talked about different ways to respond. But when we got to Laura, Laura said, this person's a lot like me and I'll tell you what I would think. And if I was in this position, if you told me this, this is how I would react. And it really was an eye-opener for all of us on the team because we thought we had all these great ideas about how to try to respond to this behavior. But we actually heard from Laura who had been in similar situations and we completely changed some of the things we were thinking about to better support that person. She has this great ability to translate, whether it's something we're hearing from a client, something they're telling us, she can say, well, what they're really probably telling you is, or here's how, this is why I would have used this language. But even as important, I can be in court talking with the client and I can use some of my more fancy words or not easy to understand words and I gotta work on that. And I can tell them something and I know that things are coming out of a mile a minute. And the moment I'm done talking, Laura walks over to them and says, what he said was this. And then she can just kind of relate it to him and they go, okay, I got it, I got it. But the most important, the most important that I've seen, and I did not expect this, is we have a lot of clients, they're connected with us for a long time and so they make mistakes. And so we would have to hold them accountable. We have to bring them into court and kind of talk about their mistakes. And sometimes if their mistakes, their choices involve just their disease and they're continuing to use, or we have to come up with plans to try to address that. And sometimes that involves increasing treatment or other things that clients may not like, but it is the recommendation from the team. And sometimes we will kind of relate, here's what the recommendation from the team is. And you can tell it like hits a client because they're thinking not about the treatment plan, they're thinking about how it will affect their family, their home, their job. And immediately Laura walks over to them and begins to have the discussion. And not only will she talk them through it, but she'll also tell them, teach them how to advocate where they can come back to us and bring to us, hey, I know you're saying that I need to go into this type of treatment or this is the plan, but let me tell you how this will affect me. And can we come up with a different solution? And maybe they'll even present an alternative solution. And when they present us an alternative solution that's similar that we think could work, if they have presented it and they've worked with Laura to put it together, we're always willing to give it a chance because as you know, if the client develops the plan, they're more likely to follow it. But until we had Laura, we didn't really have that person. We could do that some, but we didn't have that person that could be right next to them. And the connection we've had with our clients has really improved. So for our team, we've learned so much from her. And Laura, I'm gonna have you come back on. And I want you to talk not as much with your relationship to the clients, but if you just could kind of, as we finish this up here today, your teaching of the team, have you felt any of that? Or what do you see as far as the teaching of the team and the professions? I think it's been a really big two-way street. One of the things that is not on, wasn't on my radar is community safety. So I was taught with that. And so it's in the forefront of my mind now, but I feel like I've been able to translate best for the participants. I have been able to just show the team that we're human. We're not, it's not bad or good. Using, having a setback isn't necessarily bad or good. And I think that's been a big part of my learning is that it's not necessarily bad or good. And I love that the team that I work with is open to understanding that just because somebody takes a drink doesn't make them a bad person. Just because someone is symptomatic doesn't mean that they're not doing everything that they can to hold on to everything that they've got. And I really hope that I've taught the team that we're just doing the best that we can in the moment and with what we have. Well, I appreciate Lori, you coming on and sharing your story and talking about how you've really improved our team and our client's experience. I know that there's a webinar in January that you kind of really advocated for, which talks about the Forensic Peer Mentor Program that you've gone through. And you as a Forensic Peer Mentor have been such a value to us. I hope that our participants or viewers here might consider watching that. I think our next slide is our references. And then I think that was our presentation. We just are really pleased that you gave us this opportunity, SMI. Thank you both so much. Just for a really interesting, informative and most importantly, authentic presentation. Before we turn to Q&A, I wanna take a moment to let our audience know that SMI Advisor is accessible from your mobile device. Use the SMI Advisor app to access resources, education and upcoming events, complete mental health rating scales and even submit questions directly to our team of SMI experts. Download our app now at smiadvisor.org forward slash app. And I actually wanted to kind of almost rush through saying that because I wanna get straight into the Q&A. So I'll invite Laura back on and Tony Sanchez, if he'd like to join us. So first, I just wanna say there've been many comments of people saying something to the effect of, it's not, this isn't a question, but I just wanna mention how inspiring Laura's story was and how proud she should be of all of her accomplishments. And I think, it's always important for all of us to look at the humans behind all of these labels. And I know we use labels to sort of have a shorthand to be able to talk quickly, but the bottom line is we're all humans behind those and we all have different stories and we all have something that we can bring to the table. And I appreciated at the beginning, you talking Judge Oslander about how you came with different languages, different educations, different backgrounds, right? And what I hear from Laura's story is that over time, she has really become the liaison between your kind of knowledge and what you might be saying and the client. And she's really the one who can kind of straddle both sides at this point. And we've always felt at SMI Advisor that peer specialists were so unique in the fact that they actually did double duty. Not only did they have a scope to help clients, but they also, in doing so, educated and change and mold the clinical team. There's just absolutely no doubt about that, that having that voice and that person every single day helps us be better at our jobs. And so I just wanna say that I was really inspired myself by today. So let me, oh my gosh, it's just filled with, this is so inspiring, this is so amazing. So let me ask a few of my own questions while people start to ask questions. And I'd also like to say I was kind of blown away by 2015, that year that you had two devastating losses. 2015, wasn't that long ago. The idea of how much you have done in seven years is also extremely inspiring. I think I'm probably still wearing sweatshirts that I wore in 2015. So the fact that you have done so much during that period is really incredible. One of the things that you said that I would love for you to just say a few more words about was you said at one point, I wouldn't say, I would say I was not in recovery, but I wasn't using drugs. So can you speak a little bit about the difference between not using and the gap between that and actually being in recovery? So for me, that was, I just wasn't using drugs. I hadn't done any work on myself. I didn't, I was the same individual, just a little less chaotic because I didn't have substances in my system. So when I entered into recovery is when I got the body slam from drug court, and they're like, we're not gonna do this anymore. And I was like, well, maybe a little then. But I settled down and I had like just this, I can't live like this anymore. I have this voice in the back of my head that tells me that I'm not worthy, that I'll never amount to anything, that I can't do anything right. And those that stays with me constantly. And when I was actually able to open my mouth and say that to someone else and began getting like treatment when I started talking about it, when I started going to the 12-step community meetings and I started learning about honesty, open-mindedness, and willingness, and I like took those principles and I started living my life by them, like the lying to others slowed down. The lying to myself eventually stopped. I mean, I still can occasionally, you know, I'm a pretty good liar. But I found peace, like when I wasn't just using drugs, like there was no peace in me. But when I actually started like moving towards a goal and like pulling out the stuff inside of me that kept me trapped and kept me sick, I found peace. And I guess that is what I feel like my recovery is, is peace. So interesting and I love those words. One of the things I, you know, Judge Auslander that I kind of mentioned to you before we started is that we've got an audience on here who are a variety of roles. Some of them are like Laura, they've come up and now they're forensic peer specialists or they're peer specialists in other roles. Some of them are clinicians, a lot of social workers. And I guess I'm wondering what's your tip for those of us who are clinicians, who have folks in our cohort who are struggling going in and out of the criminal justice system, we desperately want to help them. What is my step as a social worker in a community mental health clinic? What do I do? Do I reach out to my local, do I go over to the local courthouse and knock on the door? What do I do? Well, I think it starts with what will your client allow you to do, of course. And if they will allow you to come and talk to their lawyer or come with them to court and be present or write a letter on their behalf, because in there you can put, I want to support this person, but here's how I can best support this person. And probably part of that will be that they engage in the services that you are providing and stay connected with you. So I think to support them, you will also be advocating what you want them to stay connected. And so you'll be doing a double service. You'll be asking the court to hold them to what the client's agreeing to and also help monitor that. But I say going with them, writing those letters, talking with their attorney, just being there to offer that. Wonderful. And so your point is speaking with our clients, telling them that we would like to support them, help them find a peer specialist. Maybe if there's one in this area at this court would be really helpful to find out if there's a peer, a forensic peer specialist in my area, how do I do that? Can I add something? Yes, tell me. I feel like one of the greatest things about social workers is they know the resources. So I have this imaginary bag right beside me of all the resources in your area. And you're gonna know that because you're the social worker in that area. And then sometimes you'll get other clients that are doing well that says, oh man, this was a good meeting over here. Or they got an all recovery meeting over here. That's where you're gonna find your peers is through your clients and being able to support them. And then if anybody is interested in going to 12-step community meetings or going to the all recovery meetings and so they kind of see what the clients are looking at and going through, I would suggest that as well. Yeah, one of the things I keep like that I wrote down in my notes as you guys were talking and that I'm hearing over and over again and that I myself always need to be reminded of is to be humble, right? And to really, it's okay to not know everything. My job is to explore and try to find it and to educate myself. And I know when we were talking ahead of time, I saw how the three of you are connected, right? You are colleagues and very respectful of each other. And each of you are willing to say, I'm not sure I know that, ask Laura. Or Laura might say, I'm not sure exactly how to say that, ask Judge Auslander. Or Judge Auslander will say, I'm not exactly sure how to introduce myself to this population, but Tony knows how to kind of do that. And I think that it's an incredible model that we all need to be reminded of every couple of years or even more often in our careers. We're never too old to learn, to listen, to shut our traps and just listen to other people and be better for it. I mean, there's just no doubt that we need to do that. So, I mean, just in some, what an incredible honor it was for me to moderate today. Again, I didn't have a chance to read all of the comments in the chat, but even someone just wrote in and said, I joined this field because of my criminal and addiction background. And being an advocate and teacher for others is so rewarding. And they said, keep up the amazing work and thank you for this presentation. So I think they said the thank you better than I would, but I am looking forward to the next webinar as well. So we'll move on to the consultation slide here. If there are any topics covered by this webinar that you would like to discuss with colleagues in the mental health field, post a question or comment on one of our SMI Advisor Webinar Roundtable discussion boards. It's an easy way to network and share ideas with other clinicians who participated in this actual webinar. If you have any questions beyond this webinar on any other topic related to SMI Advisor or evidence-based care for this population, you can get an answer within one business day from SMI Advisor's National Experts on SMI. This service is available to all mental health clinicians, peer support specialists, administrators, and anyone else in the mental health field who works with individuals with SMI. It's completely free and a completely confidential service. SMI Advisor is just one of SAMHSA initiatives that are designed to help clinicians implement evidence-based care. We'd encourage you in the audience to explore the resources available on the Mental Health, Addiction, and Prevention TTCs, as well as the National Center of Excellence for Eating Disorders and the Suicide Prevention Resource Center. These initiatives cover a broad range of topics from school-based mental health to the opioid epidemic. To claim credit for participating in today's webinar, you'll need to have met the requisite attendance threshold for your profession. Verification of attendance may take up to five minutes after we finish today. You'll then be able to select Next and Advance and complete the program evaluation before claiming your credit. And now I want to remind you of what's coming up, which was already, we kind of gave a little highlight to it, but please join us on January 13th as Lindsay Sizemore and George Brott present Forensic Peer Specialist, Your Partner for Effective Reentry and Recovery. And that's going to be another opportunity for us to expand on even more on this topic. And I hope you will join us then. This free webinar will again be on January 13th at noon Eastern time. That's a Friday. Thank you all for joining me today. And until next time, take care. Thank you.

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