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PRA's 2021 Year in Review SCROLL TO LEARN MORE

Big News in 2021

  • Refined and expanded its values and guiding principles to intentionally and comprehensively address our commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion; highlight our business goals; and underscore our company culture.
  • Welcomed Sarah L. Desmarais, PhD, to Policy Research. Dr. Desmarais joins Policy Research as a Senior Vice President and leads the firm’s Research efforts.
  • Awarded a renewal of GAINS Center, a renewal of the Safety and Justice Challenge technical assistance contract, and an expansion of the Homeless and Housing Resource Center.
  • Received silver-level recognition in the American Heart Association's 2021 Workplace Health Achievement Index.
  • Animated PRA’s suicide prevention icons and Share That You Care image pack, to extend the impact of the images by bringing these concepts to a new audience and platform. All GIFs are available on PRA’s GIPHY account for free, public use.

Criminal Justice

  • SAMHSA’s GAINS Center’s Communities of Practice engaged 31 state and local teams across 4 topics (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Reentry; Engaging Clients for Successful Reentry; Competence to Stand Trial/Competence Restoration; and Building a Competent Crisis Care System at Intercepts 0–1).
  • In 2021, Policy Research completed 21 Sequential Intercept Model (SIM) Mapping Workshops, 2 SIM Summits (Maryland and Delaware), and 6 SIM facilitator trainings, reaching over 1,000 people.
  • SAMHSA’s GAINS Center hosted 26 national webinars with a combined attendance of over 16,000 people.
  • In partnership with Policy Research, Advocates for Human Potential, Inc., convened a virtual expert roundtable focused on Comprehensive Stimulant Use Disorder Treatment in Jails, with support from the Bureau of Justice Assistance’s (BJA’s) Comprehensive Opioid, Stimulant, and Substance Abuse Program (COSSAP).
  • Policy Research and its partners finalized the BJA National Crisis Response and Intervention Training (CRIT) curriculum.
  • Policy Research received renewal funding from MacArthur to continue its work on the Safety and Justice Challenge (SJC), providing technical assistance to reduce the population of people with mental illness in jails.
  • With support from MacArthur, initiated the IMPACT Network, a behavioral health-focused expansion of the SJC, which uses a peer-to-peer model to maximize what SJC sites have learned about accelerating behavioral health reform and diversion across the criminal justice system. The IMPACT Network is composed of 11 sites from around the country.

Income Supports & Homelessness

  • The SAMHSA SOAR Online Course: Adult Curriculum celebrated 7 years with 12,557 successful course completions, and the SOAR Online Course: Child Curriculum celebrated 3 years with 420 successful course completions.
  • In FY2021, there were 3,206 approvals on SOAR-assisted initial Supplemental Security Income (SSI)/Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) applications. Decisions were received in an average of 155 days with an allowance rate of 60 percent (as compared to the initial allowance rate of 30.8 percent for all persons aged 18 to 64 who applied for SSI or SSDI in 2019).
  • With the guidance and expertise of the SAMHSA SOAR Expert Panel, the SAMHSA SOAR TA Center modified tools, created additional resources, and encouraged data tracking to ensure racial equity in SOAR implementation strategies.
  • Over the past year, the SAMHSA Homeless and Housing Resource Center (HHRC) facilitated five webinars with a total of 25,885 registrants and 12,362 attendees. HHRC also launched its full website (hhrctraining.org) and the Introduction to Housing Models, Housing Navigation, and Engagement Online Course.
  • The Analyzing Relationships Between Disability, Rehabilitation, and Work (ARDRAW) Small Grant Program staff worked to ensure racial equity in the review and award of small grant research stipends. The program increased and improved outreach and awareness of ARDRAW funding opportunities to reach a more diverse set of researchers for ARDRAW and included additional Black, Indigenous, and People of Color in ARDRAW award decision-making positions.

Research

  • In 2021, Policy Research created a standalone Research Program Area, grew a vibrant and diverse research team, and populated a robust research portfolio. In total, Policy Research brought on five new research staff and was awarded seven new research and evaluation grants/contracts, including two local evaluations, three multi-site research projects, and two efforts with a national scope over the past year. Across these awards, the focus is on identifying and evaluating policies and practices for decreasing system involvement, improving equity, and promoting community safety and wellbeing.
  • Through one of these new grants, Policy Research is working with three communities in different geographic regions of the United States to understand strategies and improve outcomes for criminal legal system involvement for people who come into frequent contact with the system. Funding for this project was awarded through the MacArthur Foundation’s Safety and Justice Challenge Research Consortium and will continue through 2022.
  • Members of the research team delivered findings from another MacArthur-funded study in a keynote presentation at the National Association of Pretrial Services Agencies, a presentation at a statewide judicial conference, and consultation with local, national, and international organizations. Policy Research will continue this work focused on reducing pretrial detention rates and increasing equity in pretrial decisions through a new 2-year grant that will begin in January 2022.
  • Policy Research researchers contributed to many peer-reviewed disseminations on topics including pretrial risk assessment, suicide prevention, and behavioral health services. These included articles in journals, such as Criminal Justice and Behavior, Journal of Interpersonal Violence, and Military Psychology, and presentations at national conferences hosted by professional organizations, including the American Psychological Association, the American Psychology-Law Society, the American Public Health Association, and the American Society for Criminology.

Service Members, Veterans, and their Families

  • The Service Members, Veterans, and their Families (SMVF) Technical Assistance (TA) Center engaged eight new states in the VA/SAMHSA's Governor’s Challenge to Prevent Suicide Among SMVF (Governor's Challenge). The SMVF TA Center worked with VA and SAMHSA to identify and facilitate the teams' focus on three priority areas for their suicide prevention action plans—screening and assessment, promoting connectedness, and enhancing lethal means safety. The Governor’s Challenge now has a total of 35 states engaged in this initiative.
  • In support of the Governor’s Challenge, the SMVF TA Center hosted three virtual Implementation Academies and one virtual Policy Academy to support the implementation of interagency state suicide prevention action plans for SMVF. Twenty-eight states were engaged in these efforts, including kick-off calls, pre- and post-academy virtual site visits, and RAND Getting to Outcomes® sessions.
  • The SMVF TA Center expanded its Crisis Intercept Mapping (CIM) model work. The CIM identifies gaps in local crisis care systems and enhances collaborative work across intercepts to improve suicide prevention and crisis care services. The SMVF TA Center engaged 10 new communities in CIM workshops and developed local crisis system maps and action plans for suicide prevention within the crisis care continuum.
  • SMVF TA Center staff presented the CIM model on panels, lightning talks, and posters at three national conferences in 2021, including the American Association of Suicidology, U.S. Department of Defense/VA Suicide Prevention Virtual Conference, and the National Council for Wellbeing’s NatCon 2021.

Publications & Products

Income Supports & Homelessness

Criminal Justice

Research

Well-Being

Criminal Justice

  • SAMHSA’s GAINS Center will coordinate a Policy Academy on Crisis Response for four state and tribal teams.
  • SAMHSA’s GAINS Center’s topical Learning Collaboratives will engage 25 teams across 4 topical areas.
  • BJA’s COSSAP, with support from Policy Research and Advocates for Human Potential, will release a series of five podcasts focused on establishing and maintaining medication-assisted treatment programs in rural jails. Each podcast will feature the perspective of one key role involved in rural, jail-based medication-assisted treatment programs.
  • The BJA National Crisis Response and Intervention Training curriculum will conduct strategic planning and pilot testing with selected sites in 2022.
  • Policy Research will provide topical TA to the IMPACT Network and deliver Sequential Intercept Model Mapping Workshops to the new sites engaged in the IMPACT Network.
  • Policy Research will host an in-person SJC Network Meeting in Atlanta, Georgia.

Income Supports & Homelessness

  • The SAMHSA SOAR TA Center will be expanding SOAR for Children with new partnerships with SAMHSA’s Systems of Care grants, the Child Welfare League, and the National Center for Homeless Education.
  • Members of the SAMHSA SOAR Expert Panel will work together to develop critical components for SOAR systems-level implementation.
  • ARDRAW program staff are working on additional outreach efforts to reach more students in the Cohort 6 round of funding for the project cycle in 2022.
  • HHRC will release 3 new online training courses, host 10 webinars, and facilitate 2 learning communities related to best practices in serving individuals experiencing homelessness who have serious mental illness, substance use disorders, and/or co-occurring disorders.
  • HHRC will analyze the impact of COVID-19 on housing stability and service delivery for individuals with serious mental illness, substance use disorders, and/or co-occurring disorders.

Research

  • The Research team will continue a multisite evaluation of the process and impact of issuing citations in lieu of arrests for misdemeanor crimes.
  • Policy Research will conduct local evaluations of programs designed to decrease homelessness and incarceration and increase behavioral health services uptake.
  • Policy Research will be continuing a multisite evaluation of programs to reduce criminal legal system involvement for people who come into frequent contact with the system.

Service Members, Veterans, and their Families

  • SAMHSA’s SMVF TA Center will be engaging 30 new communities in the Crisis Intercept Mapping model through virtual and onsite TA via a national solicitation.
  • The SMVF TA Center will be inviting 15 states and 5 territories to participate in the Governor’s Challenge to Prevent Suicide Among SMVF.
  • Eight state teams will be invited to participate in an Implementation Academy process to develop implementation plans for strategies under each of the three suicide prevention priority areas.
  • An Innovations Academy will be hosted to spotlight best and emerging practices from across the country and enhance sharing between Governor’s Challenge states.

Well-Being

  • PRA Well-Being will be releasing an animated video and podcast series featuring mind-body practices in collaboration with SolRise Wellness in the first quarter of 2022.
Our staff members live in 14 different states!