Police Diversion Programs and Pre-release Partnerships to Enhance Substance Use Treatment

Friday, April 5, 2024

1:15 PM – 2:30 PM

Presenter(s)

Jeanmarie Perrone, MD

Professor of Emergency Medicine, Director of the Center for Addiction Medicine and Policy
University of Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania
Dorian Jacobs, MD

Director of Addiction Medicine/Site Medical Director
YesCare, Pennsylvania
NO

Nicole O'Donnell, BA, CRS

Project Manager
University of Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania
JC

Judy S. Chertok, MD

Associate Professor, Program Director Fellowship in Addiction Medicin
University of Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania

Mitigating harms from criminal justice exposure is important. Partnerships with clinicians in our carcerel system are enhancing transitions during and post release and expanding MOUD program capacity for incarcerated people and implementing an addiction medicine elective to create bidirectional collaboration and education. The Police-Assisted Diversion (PAD) is offered to people with non-violent encounters such as drug possession and retail theft offenses to "divert" people from potential arrest to our peer led buprenorphine telehealth bridge program successfully mitigating criminal justice exposure.

Learning Objectives:

Learners will be able to:

Discuss strategies to align embedded substance use treatment programs with needed services to incarcerated populations consistent with federal guidance.
Understand the benefits of novel programs to mitigate criminal justice involvement in low level offenders: A Police Assisted Diversion program partners with low barrier Substance Use Treatment programs
identify strategies to enhance warm handoff from substance use disorder treatment while incarcerated to definitive follow up treatment transitions upon release.