Forensic Assertive Community Treatment: An Emerging Model of Service Delivery

FACT (Forensic Assertive Community Treatment) is an adaptation of the Assertive Community Treatment (ACT) model that addresses a significant gap in our service delivery systems by targeting the interface between mental health and criminal justice services. ACT was originally developed to engage severely mentally ill adults in outpatient psychiatric treatment through the use of assertive outreach and comprehensive services. FACT adds legal leverage in the form of judicial monitoring to ACT, which is comprehensive, high intensity, mobile, psychiatric treatment. The FACT model (ACT + legal leverage in the form of judicial monitoring) will be compared to enhanced outpatient treatment (close outpatient follow-up without judicial monitoring). Seventy adults with psychotic disorders in Monroe County who are convicted of a misdemeanor will be randomly assigned to each treatment group and followed for 12 months. Primary outcomes will include criminal justice and mental health service utilization rates, treatment adherence, psychiatric symptoms, substance abuse, and homelessness. Service utilization outcomes will be tracked using established mental health and criminal justice databases. Hypotheses are: 1. FACT (ACT plus judicial monitoring) will have a greater effect than enhanced TAU in promoting treatment adherence among high-risk adults with psychotic disorders. 2. FACT (ACT plus judicial monitoring) will have a greater effect than enhanced TAU in preventing arrest, incarceration, emergency department and inpatient hospital use among high-risk adults with psychotic disorders.