Connecting to the Community

• In Event: Innovations in Correctional Healthcare for the Aging and Serious and Chronically Ill in Prison

Abstract

This paper will discuss several initiatives geared toward building institutional and community capacity for serving vulnerable elders transitioning to the community from prison in New York. The Community Connections program is prison- community collaboration between Fordham University’s Be the Evidence Project and the New York Department of Corrections and Community Supervision (NYSDOCCS). Currently, NYSDOCCS is in the process of establishing a discharge-planning (transitional care) unit with a projected launch date of December 2016. Therefore, the goal of the project is to launch a community based project, Community Connections, which will consist of two community-based case managers. The role of the case managers will be to establish direct contacts, communication, linkages, and resource development that will bridge NYSDOCCS to community service providers, such as public health homes, nursing homes, assisted living and other transitional care agencies appropriate for the aging and seriously ill population. At the completion of this two-year project, the program will be sustained by transitioning the knowledge and resources developed by the two community-based case managers to the NYSDOCCS discharge-planning unit interdisciplinary staff. Thus, this project will accelerate the function and capacity of the NYSDOCCS Discharge Planning Unit.

Author

• Tina Maschi, Fordham University Graduate School of Social Service