From the very start of the COVID-19 pandemic, the mental health of staff and of those individuals confined has been at the forefront of the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections' focus.
The DOC's Psychology Office has implemented numerous enhancements for staff and inmates to help all people manage the added stress and anxiety brought on by the pandemic. During the entire quarantine, the Psychology Office has continued providing clinical services to inmate-patients, no matter what challenges have been presented. This level of clinical service has been feasible in part due to the Psychology Office developing the Psychological Services Emergency Preparedness Plan.
This plan was developed as a tool to help guide local Psychology departments' prioritization of essential clinical functions, should the need arise to do so. It is a guide to assist Licensed Psychologist Managers and local administrations to ensure the essential functions of the state prisons can be prioritized along with essential clinical psychological functions during an unplanned crisis, where available staff resources may be limited.
With the help of Correctional Officers, front-line Psychology staff in all institutions have continued to provide out-of-cell meetings with patients, in both general population and in restrictive housing settings, as well as modified existing sex offender programming to allow continued progress towards becoming eligible for parole. The Psychology Office also increased the frequency of rounds conducted by psychology staff across the DOC—on all housing units—to ensure patient access to mental health care.
To help with all the negative emotions inmates may feel during isolation and quarantine, the Psychology Office provided in-cell activities—including coloring sheets, sudoku puzzles and identified relaxing music that is available on inmates' tablets. Most resources were collected and shared by front line Psychology staff from around the Department of Corrections.
The Psychology Office also developed two separate informational presentations, one for staff and one for those confined, to assist all people who may be experiencing increased stress and or anxiety specifically associated with the pandemic.
Psychology departments throughout the DOC also have begun assisting psychiatry staff by facilitating and identifying needed telemed encounters delivered by psychiatry staff, to ensure psychiatric services would still continue for our inmate-patient population.
But all the increased attention by Psychology isn't just for inmate-patients.
One of the very unique practices the Psychology Office implemented was leading the weekly deployment of Critical Incident Stress Management (CISM) services, specifically focused for health care staff and corrections officers, as these individuals are on the front lines daily during this pandemic. They are working with the inmate population, which can be extremely stressful for these important essential correctional professionals. In that regard, the belief is our staff need to be sufficiently supported from a mental health standpoint, so they are best positioned to provide the best care for the inmate/patient population. Indeed, the International Critical Incident Stress Foundation is very supportive of deploying CISM services associated with this "generational disaster".
Additionally, throughout the pandemic, the Psychology Office has been able to continue to conduct remote clinical audits via access to the electronic medical record. Although several psychology staff members throughout the DOC are working from home, these individuals are able to still focus on specific clinical tasks, including identifying chronic and acute risk factors (as well as protective factors) for suicide for all DOC inmates. These risk and protective factors are uploaded into the electronic health record, so other medical professionals are aware of these risk factors when interacting with these patients. This has been an extremely valuable task and will hopefully contribute to reducing suicides and enhancing safety in our system.
Weekly meetings also help the team stay fresh and current with the latest ideas and methods.
Every Monday, the Psychology Office hosts a statewide call with Centurion, our psychiatric services vendor, for collaboration and problem-solving purposes in the various regions of the state. Every Wednesday, the Psychology office hosts an internal call specifically about psychological services around the DOC with our Central Office team. Every Friday, the office's regional LPMs host calls with their respective regions' Licensed Psychologist Managers and/or Mental Health Coordinators to ensure open communications with all psychology departments within the DOC, to problem solve, assist with complicated situations, triaging essential clinical functions, developing new protocols for telepsychology and telepsychiatry, sharing best practices, etc. These enhanced communications have allowed the DOC's four Regional Licensed Psychologist Managers the ability to better understand, support, and to provide reliable clinical consultation and supervision to the more than 300 brave front line institutional Psychology staff members in the DOC.
Finally, once every two weeks, Psychology Director Dr. Lucas Malishchak participates in a video conference call with the other mental health directors from around the United States, hosted by the National Institute of Corrections, for the purpose of sharing best practices and from learning what is and what is not working around the country with regard to correctional mental health service delivery during the pandemic.
"This has proven to be a very helpful and practical forum to collaborate with my peers to ensure that high quality and ethical psychological services in the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections continue to be delivered in the safest manner possible throughout this crisis," Dr. Malishchak said.