Gabrielle Breslow ’11Journal #1
This summer I am working at the Vera Institute of Justice. Vera combines expertise in research, demonstration projects, and technical assistance to help leaders in government and civil society improve the systems people rely on for justice and safety. Within Vera, I am specifically working within the Substance Use and Mental Health Program (SUMH). SUMH uses applied research to help government and community-based organizations create services and policies to help people who use substances or have psychiatric disorders avoid involvement in the criminal justice system and receive the services they need.
When I arrived at Vera, the SUMH program was busy working on grant proposals. Having worked previously for New York City government and for a large foundation, I had never been on the grantee side of the fundraising process. SUMH was seeking research funding from two branches of the US Department of Justice — the Bureau of Justice Assistance and the National Institute of Justice. Each proposal was very time intensive and involved conducting literature reviews, outlining research methodology, obtaining letters of support, and creating project budgets. After all that work, I’m hopeful for the team that the projects get funded.
Journal #2
After helping SUMH submit two grant proposals, I was able to focus my time on my major project for the summer. I was assigned to work on the Comprehensive Transition Planning Project (CTTP). CTTP is a grant-funded project in partnership with the New York City Department of Correction to examine how individuals serving sentences on Rikers Island get connected to services in the community after being released from city jail. Currently, the Department of Correction runs a pioneering program called the Rikers Island Discharge Enhancement (RIDE) program. CTTP is an effort to augment RIDE through the development of risk and needs assessments to direct those who elect to receive service toward those agencies that are best equipped to meet their needs.
I was working on Phase 1 of the project — the data collection and analysis portion — where I helped SUMH to analyze administrative records for a one-month cohort of men entering Rikers Island. Additionally, I helped evaluate interview data from 80 sentenced males, DOC staff, and RIDE service providers.
