A Framework for Developing Mental Health Educational Interventions for Correctional Officers

The overrepresentation of persons with mental illness in carceral settings has led to justifiable concerns about their wellbeing and the appropriateness of their care. Correctional officers may be the first point of recognition and management for incarcerated persons experiencing mental illness. Correctional officers thus unknowingly participate in mental health care without a formally recognized mental health care role or knowledge of mental health educational best practice standards. This article reviews the small literature linking specific factors in mental health educational interventions for correctional officers to improvement in knowledge, skills, attitudes, and potentially to incarcerated persons' mental health outcomes. Synthesizing that literature with the authors' experience in creating a mental health educational program for correctional officers at a large provincial detention center in Ontario, Canada, we propose a five-principle framework to guide such programs. We propose such programs be intentionally designed and evaluated with educational and quality improvement best practices in mind, an inclusive attitude toward participants and the intersectional factors in mental health in carceral settings, the use of interactive teaching methods, consideration of instructor relatability, and integration of educational programs into broader philosophical changes in carceral institutions.