Agenda

The Clinical Justice Program offers a unique, clinical approach to supporting individuals with complex needs that find themselves involved with the criminal justice system as a victim, witness or accused. Case studies and digital/printable resources will be provided to promote individualized approaches and inclusive access to the criminal justice system.

Law Society CPD Accreditation
This session contains 30 minutes of Professional Content
This session contains 30 minutes of EDI Professional Content

This presentation is based on a research collaboration between the CERC-HECW at TMU and the Gerstein Crisis Centre, which provides immediate and compassionate support to individuals experiencing mental health crises. Our study aims to improve knowledge of effective non-medical, community-based crisis interventions with (1) a scoping review of non-medical, non-carceral community-based crisis interventions, outlining key characteristics of successful crisis response models; (2) a literature review of existing evidence on involuntary treatment for mental distress and substance use crisis care; (3) better understanding of the experiences of people who access GCC’s services by analyzing internal data and conducting crisis worker interviews.

Brain injury (BI) is 95% among women in the criminal-legal-system, often related to intimate partner violence. There are no BI-focused interventions for Ontario-based women on bail. BI limits ability to read understand remember legal language and court orders detailing bail conditions. We describe a unique Court Navigator Program for women with BI.

Law Society CPD Accreditation
This session contains 30 minutes of Professional Content
This session contains 30 minutes of EDI Professional Content

Learn how important peer support is to ones mental health, and how easy it is to create a peer support network. Listen to someone with lived-experience who took the “lemons” of depression and turned them into a “lemonade” to help others.

York Regional Police have launched a new innovative wellness dashboard which seeks to inform members on their respective wellness by providing members (police officers and civilians) a way to track their well being based on call experiences and their work-life balance.

This session explores the Provincial HSJCC’s Anti-Racism Framework, offering practical strategies to embed anti-racist practices the human services and justice sectors. Learn how to meaningfully engage with Black, Indigenous, and Racialized communities, leverage advocacy, and use race-based data to drive change. Gain key insights and lessons learned to create more equitable and inclusive systems.

Law Society CPD Accreditation
This session contains 1 hour of EDI Professional Content

This presentation describes a digital storytelling project carried out with young adults from Ontario and Alberta. Participants’ stories provided insights typically absent from cannabis research, treatment and policy discussions. A significant outcome was the co-creation of a supportive community that principles of peer support to life.

JFCY is a community partner in research being conducted by Dr. Daniella Bendo (King’s University College at Western), Dr. Christine Goodwin-De Faria (Trent University Durham), Dr. Dale Spencer (Carleton University), Voula Marinos (Brock University), Nathan Innocente (University of Toronto Mississauga), and Brenda Morrison (Simon Fraser University). The presentation will present evidence-based research findings of the experience of neurodiverse justice involved youth in Ontario and the extent to which their rights are appropriately protected and advanced by counsel, the court and the services engaged. The presentation will discuss the research findings and how to best implement rights-based protections for this vulnerable population.

Law Society CPD Accreditation
This session contains 30 minutes of Professional Content
This session contains 30 minutes of EDI Professional Content

Reincarceration rates among individuals with serious mental illness (SMI) remain disproportionately high, driven by a complex interplay of individual vulnerabilities and systemic barriers across mental health, social care, and criminal justice systems. This presentation addresses high reincarceration rates among people with serious mental illness (SMI). It includes findings from a Toronto cohort study identifying key risk factors for return to custody, and presents an innovative community mental health service, the Forensic Early Intervention Service Community Team, designed to support individuals with SMI transitioning from correctional facilities to the community.

Law Society CPD Accreditation
This session contains 1 hour of EDI Professional Content

Finding Home is an innovative community action initiative currently active in Peterborough that was designed to address a rise of unit takeovers, both hostile and housing.  Three unique and distinct agencies have joined with one another in response, creating an allied network of service delivery, knowledge, resources, and values.  Direct service delivery and resources are shared between One City Peterborough, Community Counselling and Resource Centre, and Canadian Mental Health Association Haliburton, Kawartha, Pine Ridge.  This evolving community approach streamlines a supportive response to tenancy preservation by optimizing resources and focusing on community connectedness.

Housing Unit Takeover (HUT) interventions are complex, requiring incredible confidence in teammates to address safety, risk mitigation, rapid rapport and resource delivery.  During interventions, system navigation, survival gear and advocacy are most commonly provided to both tenant and guest within the dynamic. It is imperative to the Finding Home Program that the guest involved in the HUT is offered as much support as the tenant being affected. Most times, a HUT has occurred due to unmet needs from either the guest or tenant and the connected agencies aim to address those needs during and after the intervention has occurred.

As a collaborative community based program, our objective is to share our learning and development over the past few years through case studies and review of our service provider handbook.  Housing Unit Takeovers are an ever growing risk in Ontario which have prompted responses in various communities who continue to build upon one another in effort to seek efficient, effective responses.

The Prison Health Research Council (PHRC) is a collaborative council dedicated to improving healthcare access, outcomes, and policies for incarcerated populations. Our mission is to drive evidence-based and community-based research that addresses the unique health challenges faced by individuals in correctional settings, including mental health, chronic diseases, infectious diseases, and substance use disorders, and many other complex health concerns of those incarcerated. Researchers often include people with lived experience of incarceration as research subjects/participants, however, people who experience incarceration are often systematically excluded from leading and collaborating on research. Including people whom research is about can make the work more appropriate, valid, and ethical.

A Research Council of people who had experienced incarceration was established, including from populations that are over-represented, creating a space where Council members could drive the direction of the Council and prison health research.

The Council works towards ameliorating the systemic exclusion of people with lived experience of incarceration from research through reflecting the needs, priorities, and issues of people who experience incarceration. This work holds relevance to academia, community orgs or other researchers, in other jurisdictions who want to bring voice, power, and opportunities to the people whom their research is about.

The trans and gender diverse community experience a revolving door of crisis on a community level due to higher rates of housing instability/insecurity, mental health and substance use, and a lack of appropriate and accessible community supports. You will be exposed to what the “revolving door of crisis” from a community level looks like. They will then come to understand contributing factors specific to the trans/gender diverse community that maintain this cycle through a slide deck of qualitative/quantitative examples and case studies.

There was a service gap for low-risk clients who were charged with minor sexual /sexually motivated offence(s) or were on probation for such offences. Such clients were not eligible for sexual offender programs offered by mental health facilities, such as CAMH. However, courts recommends that such clients engage in some counselling programs while they are waiting for their trials or serving probation. A 10-week Problematic Sexual Behavior Therapeutic Interventions (PSB-TI) is designed for persons who have come in conflict with the law due to problematic sexual behavior (PSB) and need help in managing urges, emotions, thoughts, and developing healthy sexuality/sexual behavior.

Using psychoeducation and psychotherapeutic approaches, the PSB-TI covered areas such as consent, boundaries, unhealthy sexual behavior, what constitutes problematic sexual behavior (PSB) as per the Canadian laws and help develop awareness and skills to self-regulate and manage PSB effectively.