A County-Level Case Study of Early Psychosis in the Context of a Hybrid Juvenile Competency Restoration and Mental Health Problem-Solving Court and Linkage to Coordinated Specialty Care Services.

Abstract

An important and unresolved question in the context of the implementation of coordinated specialty care (CSC) for early psychosis in the United States is the extent to which youth and young adults from marginalized backgrounds are able to equitably access CSC services. In this brief report, we describe pathways between a county hybrid juvenile competency restoration and mental health problem-solving court ('Court'), serving youth with high rates of psychosis and multiple risk factors for poor long-term outcomes, and local CSC services. We found that the Court was overall successful in linking youth with psychosis to care, but in the majority of cases this was not CSC programming more specifically. Drawing on Court and CSC records as well as family interviews, we report on factors contributing to low linkage to CSC, including family-side barriers (lack of transportation, preference for lower intensity / lower demand services) and provider-side barriers, including eligibility criteria such as duration of psychosis, that ultimately exclude otherwise eligible Court-involved youth.