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Treating current and former prison inmates for psychiatric disorders, including substance abuse, can be a daunting challenge even for the most experienced psychiatrists and mental health professionals, in large part because of the chasm between prison culture and that of the society outside the prison walls. Many inmates had serious and untreated mental disorders before they were incarcerated, and other develop such illnesses while behind bars. A philanthropic organization, the Jacob and Valerie Langeloth Foundation, is trying to break down some of the barriers that keep inmates and ex-cons from receiving psychiatric care. It has given a $200,000 grant to the Fortune Society in New York City to develop an outpatient clinic that will provide a range of mental health services, including psychotherapy, medication management and treatment-adherence monitoring, to formerly incarcerated individuals. The Fortune Society has been assisting ex-inamtes readjust for more than 40 years.
For more about the unique challenges and issues involved in providing mental health care to ex-inmates, see Psychiatric News, http://pn.psychiatryonline.org/content/46/10/9.1.full.
