Charlottesville, VA – IMPACT’s 2011 Nehemiah Action brought 1,500 people to seek commitments from City Councilors and County Supervisors to fund the Healthy Transitions Program. This program is a psychiatric re-entry program that ensures the continuity of care for ex-offenders with mental illness. Rather than one-time help or a long waiting period, it provides immediate and on-going medication and therapy. Thanks to this program, ex-offenders only have to wait two weeks to get care, as opposed to the previous 11-month wait. Healthy Transitions is now hailed as a state-wide best practice, and has reduced recidivism among participants to 10% as compared to the state 25% average. Before this program, ex-offenders were waiting up to 11 months to get care; now, the wait time is only two weeks.
