Wayne County Chief Judge Timothy Kenny has been working to stop the spread of COVID-19. Through bond reductions and early releases, he's helped to send home over 400 inmates since last March. Close quarters, limited PPE, a high population due to mandatory sentencing guidelines and old buildings with poor ventilation have conspired to make correction facilities hotbeds for COVID-19. Michigan's prison system — the Michigan Department of Corrections — has gotten the most attention around this. Since the start of the pandemic, more than 135 inmates within the MDOC have died from COVID-19. One in two of the department's inmates have tested positive since March. But jails are battling many of the same issues. In addition to Judge Kenny — and others within the Third Circuit Court — pushing to release inmates, the jail has also ramped up its testing protocol, per Sheryl Kubiak, dean of Wayne State University's School of Social Work. Kubiak has worked with Chief of Jails Robert Dunlap to create a testing and contract tracing plan. "When COVID hit and we knew that the jail was in such trouble — we made a call and said what can we do to help," said Kubiak, who explained that at the time, they were just learning that people could have no symptoms and still transmit COVID-19. Working with Wayne State University's Medical School, they did a series of mass testing to find out what the prevalence rate was, decide who to isolate and make future plans.

Entrepreneur, philanthropist and Detroit leader William F. Pickard has pledged $250,000 to support five scholarships in the Wayne State University School of Social Work. The scholarships will be available to undergraduate and graduate social-work students who attend full or part time. Students also must be active members of the Association of Black Social Workers Detroit chapter or the Wayne State chapter. Pickard is a former faculty member in the WSU School of Social Work, and helped shape the school in several ways. In 2017, he gave $125,000 to support renovations in the school’s new building on Woodward Avenue. He also used that opportunity to name four rooms in honor of important people in his life, including longtime friend Paul Hubbard. Hubbard, who founded the nonprofit Black Family Development in 1978,  worked with Pickard to improve the lives of Black families in Detroit. An alumnus and dedicated supporter of the School of Social Work, Hubbard has served on the school’s Board of Visitors for several years. As a graduate student, Hubbard served as the president of the Association of Black Students and founded the Wayne State chapter of the Association of Black Social Workers, the first student chapter in the country. Wayne State President M. Roy Wilson noted both men are important leaders in Detroit and at Wayne State. “Dr. Pickard and Mr. Hubbard have devoted themselves to strengthening the Black community in Detroit and ensuring that Black students have equal access to the education and opportunities that can create generational change,” Wilson said. “We are grateful to have them as part of our university community.” Pickard hopes his giving will inspire a new generation of Black men to pursue social work, a field in which they’re underrepresented. “It’s important for social workers to reflect the community members they serve,” said School of Social Work Dean Sheryl Kubiak. “At the Wayne State University School of Social Work, we’re teaching future community leaders how to make a difference. They can have no finer examples than Dr. William Pickard and Mr. Paul Hubbard.”

Successful entrepreneur, philanthropist and Detroit leader William F. Pickard is pledging $250,000 to support scholarships in the Wayne State University School of Social Work, according to the school website. An initial gift of $150,000 will create five scholarships, and a future gift of $100,000 will endow the scholarships and make them permanent. The scholarships will be available to undergraduate and graduate social work students who attend full or part time at the university. Each scholarship is named in honor of someone who has made a significant impact on Pickard’s development as a leader, including Paul L. Hubbard who has a long friendship with Pickard. Wayne State University President M. Roy Wilson noted both men are important leaders in Detroit and at Wayne State. “Dr. Pickard and Mr. Hubbard have devoted themselves to strengthening the Black community in Detroit and ensuring that Black students have equal access to the education and opportunities that can create generational change,” he said. “We are grateful to have them as part of our university community.” Pickard hopes his giving will inspire a new generation of Black men to pursue social work, a field in which they’re underrepresented. “It’s important for social workers to reflect the community members they serve,” said School of Social Work Dean Sheryl Kubiak in the release. “At the Wayne State University School of Social Work, we’re teaching future community leaders how to make a difference. They can have no finer examples than Dr. William Pickard and Mr. Paul Hubbard.”

The novel coronavirus’ grip on Michigan has loosened in recent weeks amid a steady decline in the daily rate of new confirmed infections. On Tuesday, Michigan recorded just 199 new cases. But as front-line workers emerge from months of warlike chaos in their workplaces, mental health experts are already noticing a massive surge in mental health needs among a traumatized workforce. After Wayne State University’s School of Social Work and College of Nursing launched a mental health hotline for traumatized doctors, nurses, and other first responders in the early days of Michigan’s COVID-19 experience, a common theme emerged in the calls, said Suzanne Brown, an associate professor in social work at the school: Front-line workers are suspended in a state of stress that is both “acute and chronic.” Hospital staff and first responders are used to dealing with crises. But typically, they address the immediate need — an emergency surgery, a horrific accident scene — and move on to a new task. But with COVID-19, Brown said, the trauma lingers along with the pandemic. “That sense of not knowing when it’s going to end leaves very little room for people to recover,” she said.

While everyone is under stress due to the COVID-19 pandemic, there's no question that first responders and front-line workers are among those most affected. To that end, the Wayne State University School of Social Work and the College of Nursing, in collaboration with other Wayne State departments, have launched a crisis hotline for those first responders and health care professionals working on the front lines to fight the novel coronavirus outbreak. The crisis hotline will be staffed six days a week by professionally licensed social workers, psychiatric/mental health nurse practitioners and psychologists. They will offer critical emotional support for health professionals and law enforcement personnel working under extremely stressful conditions. "The motivating premise behind this collaboration is simple: We all need to contribute what support we can to those who occupy the front lines of this battle," Sheryl Kubiak, dean of the School of Social Work, said in a statement. "Considering the unique nature of this pandemic, we have to do everything we can to take care of them so that they can continue trying to save lives."

Stephanie Hartwell, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences dean, Sheryl Kubiak, School of Social Work dean, and Ijeoma Nnodim-Opara, assistant professor of internal medicine and pediatrics, wrote an article for The Conversation about how COVID-19 has disproportionately hit lower-income areas and communities of color. “Nowhere is this discrepancy more evident than in prisons, jails and homeless shelters – made up disproportionately of poorer, black and Latino men and women. Here, COVID-19 cases have mushroomed due to dormitory-style living conditions and the inability of people, often with underlying health issues, to practice social distancing. As the virus rages on, comprehensive COVID-19 testing for these populations remains elusive. As experts on jails, health disparities and how to help former prisoners reintegrate into society, we believe that missteps in how we transition incarcerated individuals back to the community would only put this vulnerable populace at greater risk of getting and transmitting COVID-19.”

Sheryl Kubiak, School of Social Work dean, wrote an op-ed supporting jail reform. “Before the Michigan Jails Task Force released its report earlier this year, it wasn’t well known that tens of thousands of people were jailed in our state for driving on a suspended license or for unpaid tickets, fees, and child support. It wasn’t well known that rural counties in our state were outpacing Wayne and Kent Counties in jail population and seeing extremely high rates of serious mental illness among those jailed. Somewhere along the way, as Michigan’s jails tripled in size, their purpose got muddled. They became a tool for debt collection. A tool for responding to homelessness, mental illness, and addiction. To address this problem, we have to sharpen our focus on public safety. At each point in our justice system — from issuing warrants, to making arrests, to deciding who should be released pending trial, and how those found guilty should be punished — our laws should focus police, judges, and other decision-makers on immediate safety threats rather than money, addiction, and nuisances.”

Another 77 people in Michigan have died due to COVID-19, pushing total deaths up to 617 – a 14 percent increase from Saturday. The number of new cases in the state increased by 1,493 from Saturday, brining the total to 15,718, according to data from the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services. The city of Detroit, which has by far the largest number of cases and deaths in the state, reported an additional 27 deaths over the 24-hour period, bringing its total death count to 158. The number of cases in the city hit 4,495, an increase of 545 from the previous day. At least five health care workers have died in Southeast Michigan from COVID-19 since early March. Wayne State University’s School of Social Work and College of Nursing are launching a crisis hotline Tuesday, April 7 to offer support for first responders and health care workers on the front lines of the outbreak.

Who is incarcerated in Michigan’s county jails, their length of sentence, and how many die there is unknown — and it has been that way for decades. Policymakers say they're taking steps to fix this broken system, but with little data to go by, responding to the mental health needs of those in county jails is like working in the dark. Sheryl Kubiak, dean of Wayne State’s School of Social Work, has spent her career researching the intersection of criminal justice and heath care. She served on the Task Force with Lt. Gov. Garlin Gilchrist and State Supreme Court Chief Justice Bridget McCormack. Improving outcomes for inmates, connecting them with services and giving corrections officers the information they need requires an intake system that asks the right questions, Kubiak said. There are a variety of jail management software programs available to purchase, with little uniformity from county to county, Kubiak said. The software is expensive and takes training to learn how to use, making it difficult for jail administrators to justify changing even if their current system is not as effective as they’d like. “In the best case scenario, there would be a uniform system that all the jails would use,” Kubiak said, in a telephone interview. “But to require that, the state would have to fund it. And that would be a big ticket item.” Some jails, such as Kalamazoo County, are paper and pencil, Kubiak said, with no jail management information software at all. Nor is there a robust oversight mechanism to make sure county jails are operating as they should.

Who is in Michigan jails, for how long and why, largely remains unknown following months of investigation. The Michigan Joint Task Force on Jail and Pretrial Incarceration released its final report this week, leaving many questions. What is known is that even a short stay in jail is destabilizing, said Sheryl Kubiak, dean of Wayne State University’s School of Social Work, and a task force member. “If you had a job, you may lose it, and if you lose your job, then you might lose your housing. These unintended consequences have a big effect, which is why we want to work with the legislature now, while the momentum is still going.” Task force members will now work with the legislature in an effort to have at least some of their recommendations enacted through passage of new laws and/or statues, Kubiak said. “I’m optimistic. I think many of the legislators have had experience in the criminal justice system, as attorneys or in other ways, and I think they understand some of these issues very well,” Kubiak said. “We’ve made a good start here with smart and committed people.”

If you need Medicaid in Michigan, you’ll have to work…or get a waiver. New regulations pushed through by the State’s Republican Legislature and signed by then-governor Rick Snyder in 2018 went into effect on Jan. 1. The Trump administration is also pushing work requirements for those who receive federal food assistance and has tightened work requirements for those receiving food stamps or SNAP benefits. The move will kick 688,000 underprivileged people out of the program. Judith Wineman is a full-time faculty member in the Wayne State School of Social Work and the director of CHAMPS. The program helps young adults who have aged out of the foster care and the juvenile justice system get to – and stay in college. She says work requirements are a moral crisis. Marla Garmo is a Campus Coach for Wayne State’s CHAMPS program. “We have to think about what it really says about us as a country that we will allow people to go hungry, to lose out on their food stamps benefits and enforce a work requirement that really can be unattainable for some individuals.” Garmo says the system is set up to make the application process more difficult. “People have to apply online instead of a paper application and they might not have access to a computer, or don’t know how to use a computer. There’s a lot of barriers. So once you’ve been deemed eligible and given these benefits, now you’re being told there are additional requirements. None of that gets to why people can’t find a job.” These requirements often disproportionately affect underprivileged communities. “Poor people, immigrants, people that don’t speak the language, elderly people can’t advocate for themselves,” says Wineman. “To me, it’s a political smokescreen to say, ‘We’re doing this great thing by saving all this money by forcing people to work.’ To me and other social workers, that is not the answer.”

A statewide task force charged with identifying ways to reduce Michigan’s jail population and expand alternatives to incarceration began to publicly shape its initial policy proposals on Tuesday. Ideas floated during a meeting in Lansing included reducing some low-level misdemeanor offenses to civil infractions, and ending the practice of suspending a person's driver's license unless the suspension is related to unsafe driving. The group includes prosecutors, law enforcement, attorneys, legislators, formerly incarcerated people and advocates. Discussions have been guided by research presented by the Pew Charitable Trusts, as well as testimony from residents across the state. Advocates laid out ways to better support victims, including the relatives of murder victims. Those families are "often left out and left in the cold" to navigate the court system when victim advocates become overloaded with cases, said Sheryl Kubiak, dean of social work at Wayne State University, who sits on the task force. 

Armed with care packages, clothes and clinical supplies, medical students in Detroit are learning outside the classroom. They are putting their knowledge and boots to the pavement, providing free health care to the city's homeless. Each week, students under the supervision of a registered physician or nurse practitioner get on their bikes and look for those in need. Programs such as Michigan State University's Detroit Street Care, Wayne State University's Street Medicine Detroit and the University of Michigan's Wolverine Street Medicine work together to treat as many of the city's homeless as possible. Jedidiah Bell, a fourth-year med student at Wayne State University and president of Street Medicine Detroit, says seeing issues from lack of health care access in his home country of Zimbabwe made him want to participate. "When I moved to the states for university and medical school, I saw the similar things [lack of access] with the homeless population," said Bell. "When I saw street medicine, I appreciated the model of how can we take medical care to the street and build up trust to bridge the gap between the homeless and the medical world." While the programs provide a vital service to the community, Bell says the real-world experience teaches students things the classroom or clinic can't. "It teaches medical students to hone-in on, not just medical conditions of patients, but to be able to sit down and form relationships and discuss other things that might be contributing to [patients'] health but might not come up during a traditional medical encounter." Bell says there's a widespread belief that the "students take away more from people on the streets than they take away from us." Anneliese Petersen, a second-year medical student at Wayne State University and volunteer with Street Medicine Detroit, says the experience also shows upcoming medical professionals another side of health -- the social determinants. "Things that are not strictly medical-based but have a strong impact on health and well-being. Income, access to health care, access to medication, being able to eat well, sleep well, to be able to relax and not be under chronic stress."

Wayne State University professors in the School of Social Work Poco Kernsmith, Erin B. Comartin and Sheryl Kubiak, dean, wrote a piece for The Conversation about the importance of understanding sex offenses perpetrated by women in light of the recent indictment of Jeffrey Epstein for sex trafficking. Epstein allegedly did not act alone. In a variety of court filings, some of his female associates, most notably Ghislaine Maxwell, have been depicted as instrumental in his sexual encounters. None of them has been criminally charged. “We have studied women who have been convicted of sexual assault, abuse and human trafficking, as well as public attitudes toward sex offenders. Our research, and that of others, shows the similarities and differences between male and female sexual offenders.” In conclusion, the authors wrote: “We believe that introducing prevention programs that specifically address women as potential perpetrators may be effective in helping to prevent some abuses, such as those alleged in the Epstein cases.”

A group of lawmakers, judges, and law enforcement is starting to get a better idea of who is in Michigan’s jails and why. The Michigan Joint Task Force on Jail and Pretrial Incarceration met Friday and got their first data dump from the PEW Charitable Trusts. PEW is working on collecting jail, court and arrest data from across the state to help the task force come up with recommendations for improvement. The Center for Behavioral Health and Justice at Wayne State University also presented the findings to the state task force. They found that almost half of the people released from jail in Michigan, are discharged after business hours. Experts say that creates problems for people who need mental health or substance abuse treatment. Sheryl Kubiak, School of Social Work dean and director of the Center for Behavioral Health and Justice, worked on the study. She said they studied jails in ten counties, and they found more than 43-percent of people released from jail are released between 5 p.m. and 8 a.m. “So, if you can imagine somebody who is being discharged at 12:01 or 8 p.m., trying to connect with services is much more difficult,” she told the task force. The task force was created earlier this year to study’s Michigan’s jail system. It plans to have recommendations for improvements to the state’s jail system by January 9.

Against a backdrop of steadily-soaring opioid-related death rates in the U.S., state agencies and private funders are pairing up to tackle the complex problem of opioid use disorder. A new program, recently announced by the Michigan Opoid Partnership and Governor Gretchen Whitmer, aims to serve as a model of best practices for other states, especially those with large rural populations, in addressing opioid addiction. The $5 million series of grants will go towards the removal of barriers to effective treatment for opioid use disorder at all levels, from training and prevention to coordination, implementation and data collection. Another $1.5 million of the funds will go to select county jails and Wayne State University's Center for Behavioral Health and Justice, which will coodinate MAT programs and therapeutic behavioral treatments for incarcerated individuals over a 16-month period.

Combining private and public dollars, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer launched a new initiative to combat the same growing opioid crisis in the state that’s plaguing the country and killing thousands of Americans every year. The collaborative program, dubbed the Michigan Opioid Partnership, aims to remove barriers to those people who need to enter an opioid treatment program and find a path to success, Whitmer said Monday afternoon during a news conference on the campus of Wayne State University. In addition to the medication system in hospitals, the program will assist jails using a continuity-of-care approach focused on long-term treatment of opioid disorder using $1.5 million in funds. The Center for Behavioral Health and Justice at Wayne State University will get the grant to coordinate the efforts. County jails will be selected for funding to work in partnership with the university team to serve inmates with addiction. The program will last 16-months and will work like an extension of the current program in place, explained Sheryl Kubiac, the dean of Wayne State University’s School of Social Work and Director of the Center for Behavioral Health. Kubiac said the program was already involved in 16 counties with jail administrators and community stakeholders. “We’re going to act as sort of the glue, or the external facilitators to go into the counties and get folks to talk to each other,” she said. “Inside the jails we are going to lead them through a needs assessment. Each one of the county jails that works with us will get approximately $250,000 to be able to apply to an area of need.” Kubiac said working with addicts in jail is different than when someone is in the emergency department at a hospital; in jail, a person is forced to look at the problem and can’t hide from it. “You don’t get the hospital ER where they come in and go out. People that go in jail are usually there for a few days so you get a chance to really engage them, or begin the process of engagement and that’s really important when someone is addicted – you need that time to really engage them,” she said. “The medications do a start to get people paying attention and stabilize, but then what we have to do is try and figure out why they were using and try to fix what’s happening emotionally or psychologically.”

A new study offers a solution to the problems of jail overcrowding and recidivism in Michigan: Invest more in mental health and drug treatment. Wayne State University’s Center for Behavioral Health and Justice spent five years reviewing treatment and jail-diversion programs in 10 counties. Researchers found that people who got treatment for mental health disorders were less likely to return to jail. “Training law enforcement to recognize the signs and symptoms of mental illness is really important,” says Sheryl Kubiak, dean of WSU’s School of Social Work who led the study. “When we did pre- and post-interviews, officers would tell us things like they didn’t believe in mental illness, they just thought it was bad behavior. If we can decrease the number of people who go into costly confinement and deter them to treatment, I think we will do a lot better.” 

Diverting individuals with mental health disorders into treatment programs rather than simply jailing them not only significantly reduces the jail population but also lowers the chances of recidivism among offenders, according to a five-year study conducted by the Center for Behavioral Health and Justice at Wayne State University’s School of Social Work and released by the state of Michigan. According to the study, 54 percent of all individuals booked into jails in the target counties reported some variation of a substance abuse problem, while 45 percent described themselves as housing insecure and 42 percent said they had been recently incarcerated. Meanwhile, 34 percent had some indication of mental illness. “More than just a collection of data, this report offers us an early roadmap to drastic improvements in how our criminal justice system handles issues of mental illness and substance abuse,” said Sheryl Kubiak, dean of the Wayne State School of Social Work and the principal investigator for the study. “In addressing these issues, we also give ourselves opportunity to address many of the problems that these issues underlie, including jail overcrowding, poor access to mental health, and drug treatment and recidivism.” Drug abuse presented an equally thorny problem for many jails, said Kubiak. “Most jails have little therapy or protocols for inmates suffering withdrawals,” she said. “Some just hand out blankets and Gatorade and think that’s enough.” Kubiak concludes: “As the study proves, when we simply lock up mentally ill or addicted individuals with no real plan to get them help, we’re only prolonging and exacerbating problems that we have the tools to effectively address.”  

In a special episode of the Michigan Association of Counties’ Podcast 83, Sheryl Kubiak, Wayne State University School of Social Work dean, talked about mental health policies and reforms in Michigan and what they can mean to county jails.