This report summarizes findings from the final year of an evaluation of the impacts of the Mental Health Services Continuum Program.
The purpose of this report is to summarize the results of the ongoing process and outcome evaluation of the Mental Health Services Continuum Program (MHSCP) by University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), and to assess the impact of the increased Parole Outpatient Clinic (POC) attendance requirements and staffing increases, put into place at the beginning of February 2007. The samples used for this evaluation depended on the outcome measure, and the sample criteria are explained at the beginning of each section. The overall population of subjects included inmates who were released from prison between January 1, 2003, and December 31, 2007. Findings from the evaluation replicated trends identified in previous reports: about half of the eligible parolees received a pre-release assessment, and those who did were more likely than those who did not, to attend a POC following release; receiving a pre-release interview was significantly associated with attending a POC upon release, and was in turn associated with lower risk of recidivism; the new policies implemented to increase POC attendance showed a statistically significant increase after the effective dates for those policy changes; and semi-structured interviews conducted with a sample of POC clinicians indicated that 38 percent thought that the new policy requiring eight consecutive weekly sessions for Enhanced Outpatient Program (EOP) patients was good or helpful, but 55 percent of clinicians thought the policy had a negative impact on patient care.