Mental Health Courts Learning Modules

Developing a Mental Health Court: An Interdisciplinary Curriculum is a free online multimedia curriculum for individuals and teams seeking to start, maintain, or just learn about mental health courts.

Developing a Mental Health Court includes material on a wide range of topics critical to starting and operating a mental health court. Content includes key principles in behavioral health and criminal justice, including material on diagnoses and treatment modalities, assessment for behavioral health and criminogenic needs, and defendants’ legal rights, as well as descriptions of the various practitioners in the mental health, substance abuse, and criminal justice systems. The curriculum also introduces considerations for convening the right stakeholders, determining whether to start a mental health court, selecting a “target population” for the program, setting program policies, developing and monitoring treatment plans and supervision conditions, and sustaining a mental health court, including data collection and evaluation.