The need for such efforts is acute: “Well over half of the people at Rikers right now are suffering from some mental health issue that could be addressed,” said one speaker, Richard Alborn, president of the Citizens Crime Commission of NYC, referring to New York City’s Rikers Island prison.  

Of 6,700 inmates, an estimated 1,400 have severe mental illness, and 1,500 and 1,800 suffer from opioid and alcohol abuse, respectively, he said.

“Shame on us if we don’t address that,” he said.

Academics, experts in crime and healthcare, and elected officials—including Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg—spoke at the Jan. 16 Mental Health & Crime event, sponsored by Fordham, Northwell Health, and the Citizens Crime Commission.

Speakers focused on one of today’s most vexing challenges: the inordinate number of crimes committed by people who suffer from mental illness or substance abuse.

“Not everyone who has a mental health issue or confronts a mental health challenge commits a crime, and not every single person who commits a crime has a mental health challenge,” Aborn said. “Our job, if we’re going to be true to the goal of prevention, is to identify those intersections.”

A Case Study

The program was arranged to highlight a typical case as it winds its way through the system, from the first 911 call to the prosecution and sentencing of the accused. 

Speakers included members of the New York Police Department, such as Monica Brooker, Ph.D., assistant commissioner of the department’s Behavioral Health Division, as well as members of the judiciary, such as Matthew D’Emic, FCRH ’74, presiding judge for the Brooklyn Mental Health Court.

In a fireside chat with Fordham Law School professor Deborah Denno, Bragg touted the proposal of a new law, known as the SUPPORT Act, which will mandate crisis intervention for mentally ill offenders who are accused of misdemeanor crimes but are deemed too unfit to stand trial. Currently, intervention is only mandated for those accused of felonies.

He praised New York Assemblyman Tony Simone and New York State Senator Brad Hoylman-Sigal for proposing the new law.

He also touted the success of programs designed to help stop the downward spiral of people suffering from mental illness. Neighborhood Navigator, launched last year by the NYC Office of Neighborhood Safety, employs outreach workers who approach people on the street who are in obvious distress and offer them everything from a cup of coffee to help with housing.

Bragg said Court Navigator, a similar program that connects criminal defendants with nonprofits such as the Fortune Society, is even more potentially transformative because of the way it helps address underlying causes of crime.

“My Spidey sense tells me this is going to be one that we’re going to want to double down on,” he said. “Just being in the courtroom, seeing workers interact with defendants, and seeing the results—this has real promise,” he said.

The Mental and the Physical 

Michael Dowling, GSS ’74, President and CEO of Northwell Health, lamented the traditional separation of mental and physical health. 

One of Northwell’s initiatives to address issues like the shortage of psychiatrists is a partnership with the City of New York to open a new high school dedicated to careers in mental health, radiation medicine, nursing, and physical health.

It’s an issue that affects Northwell monetarily, as he estimated that it costs the company $100 million annually to provide mental health care to patients, many of them on Medicaid. There’s also a moral imperative, though, because adolescents, in particular, have shown increases in depression and anxiety since 2012. 

“There is no health without mental health. People need to talk about it differently,” he said. “It’s changing, but it needs to change much, much quicker.”

The two organizations signed a memorandum of understanding that commits to initiating several new programs.

“The partnership between Fordham and Northwell Health will be a boon for the University’s students and academic departments and a terrific resource for Northwell employees and researchers,” said Joseph M. McShane, S.J., president of Fordham.

“We believe the partnership will offer significant intellectual and policy cross-pollination between Northwell’s Center for Learning and Innovation, Fordham’s Graduate School of Social Service, the Gabelli School, and other schools and programs across the University, thus expanding Fordham’s curricular and programmatic breadth.”

The agreement will provide several benefits to both organizations. Northwell will lend its resources toward the development of Fordham curriculum, and in turn, the University will extend education opportunities to Northwell employees.

Enhancing Education Opportunities

As part of the agreement, staff at Northwell’s Center for Learning and Innovation (CLI), which functions as the health system’s in-house corporate university and serves as a teaching resource for the Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra/Northwell, will work to enhance curriculum in Fordham programs.

Staff from CLI will work with faculty at Fordham’s Graduate School of Social Service (GSS) to develop course content for Fordham’s Master of Social Work (MSW) degree.

And in keeping with the patient safety simulation training and career development provided at Northwell’s CLI, the two organizations will create simulation-based training models for both GSS and Gabelli School of Business programs, including the University’s nonprofit leadership master’s program.

In exchange, Fordham and Northwell will explore the possibility of the health system’s employees earning certificates from GSS and other Fordham schools at Northwell facilities.

Defining the ‘Real Role’ of Social Work

For Northwell President and CEO Michael Dowling, GSS ’74, the partnership represents an opportunity for Northwell to expand the skills of caregivers in growing areas of the health care field. For instance, one of the industry’s needs, he said, is to provide additional training to social workers in managing the care of patients with complex needs.

“The partnership will help us define the real role of social work inside a health care system. We’ll be redefining the role of social workers, what functions they should take part in, and what leadership roles they should play,” he said.

“In many ways, it’s creating the talent for an evolving field of health care that is changing dramatically. You can’t have education moving one way and practitioners in the field moving in a different direction. You’ve got to be both moving in the same direction all the time.”

The connections between Dowling, Fordham, and Northwell go back four decades. After graduating from GSS, Dowling served as a professor of social policy and assistant dean there. In 2016, Dowling delivered the commencement address for the institute’s International Diploma in Humanitarian Assistance. He received a doctor of humane letters from Fordham in 2017, and this year, he joined the University’s Board of Trustees.

Strengthening Current Ties

Debra M. McPhee, Ph.D., dean of the Graduate School of Social Service, said the formal partnership represents a strengthening of an association that already exists. Students from GSS have done field placement work at Northwell facilities for several years.

“Michael Dowling is truly one of the most innovative guys I’ve ever met. He brings a social work perspective to his work in that he cares a great deal about relationships and focuses a great deal on investing in his people,” she said.

“As a result, he has created an incredible organization that is innovative in almost every part of its functions, from its medical school to its resources to its staff.”

In particular, McPhee said, she expects the MSW students in the graduate school’s Palliative Care Fellowship Program to benefit from the partnership. Graduates from that and other GSS programs have a firm grasp on the benefits of integrated health, which emphasizes the relationship between physical and psychological, or mental health, she said.

“One of the things that MSWs do well is interdisciplinary work. So as the health field changes, integrating more mental health and physical health, it’s a great place for social workers to bring their expertise to the table,” she said.

McPhee said GSS students will benefit from the partnership with Northwell because the faculty at the Center for Learning and Innovation has the ability to take a task and turn it on its head conceptually. For example, instead of traditional curriculum, she said, medicine there is reorganized into life stages, from infancy through death.

“The center is about engaged learning, hands-on applied learning through simulation, and observation, rather than through lecture. The folks running that center will talk in very different conceptual ways than say, a traditional academic institution, or other ways we teach,” she said.

Looking Ahead

As part of the agreement, Fordham and Northwell have also committed to exploring new initiatives in the future. The two will work to place more Fordham students in internships and fellowships at or through Northwell, and Northwell will also participate in Fordham’s annual STEM career fair. For Northwell employees, the University will explore the possibility of dedicated admissions services they can use to facilitate early applications both at the undergraduate and graduate level.

Benefits for faculty research will be discussed as well, with Northwell potentially sharing insights into health care-related topics with researchers such as those involved in the Palliative Care program and the Gabelli School of Business’ Global Healthcare Innovation Management Center. Discussions are also planned for possibly connecting Northwell employees to Fordham’s Master’s in Health Administration program, which is jointly administered by GSS, the Gabelli School, and the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.

Dowling said he’s looking forward to future discussions that will reveal areas of cooperation that aren’t apparent right now, especially with other graduate schools such as Fordham Law.

“Health care is such a broad area, especially in an organization as big as ours. If you want to be in the finance business, we are a $13.4 billion organization with an enormous economic impact on the communities we serve. If you want to be in the IT business, we invest hundreds of millions of dollars annually in technology. If you want to be in the data information business, we’re responsible for storing, managing, and integrating millions of patient records,” he said.

“Fordham has all these programs on the academic side, and we’ve got all these programs on the ground level. So we want to examine how each of us can change so that we can help each other going forward.”