Projects

The Stepping Up Initiative, launched nationally in 2015, sought to reduce the number of individuals with mental illnesses in jails by integrating mental health diversion strategies into the corrections system. Following the deinstitutionalization of mental health care in the late 1970s and early 1980s, jails had become default mental health facilities, often lacking adequate resources for treatment. In 2017, Orange County Sheriff Sandra Hutchens, Supervisor Todd Spitzer, and the OC Criminal Justice Coordinating Committee joined the initiative. With Sheriff Hutchens at the helm, Orange County began a months long collaborative working group process to assess where the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration's Sequential Intercept Model could be incorporated to improve care and diversion pathways in Orange County’s corrections system, the sixth-largest in the nation.