LEAD enhances safety, health, and equity by building a community-based alternative to jail and prosecution for people whose unlawful behavior stems from unmet needs related to substance use, mental health challenges, or extreme poverty. LEAD-style case management is the heart and soul of this intervention, a “golden thread” to form trusting relationships with people for whom standard models of care just aren’t effective, helping participants navigate systems to foster their stabilization and progress.
Rather than operating primarily in offices, LEAD case managers meet participants where they are: physically, mentally, and emotionally. Based on harm reduction principles, LEAD’s client-driven case management is flexible, adaptive, and patient. This intensive, noncoercive, community-based approach represents an intentional reorientation away from clinical systems and expectations that can pose barriers for the people LEAD is designed to serve.
https://leadbureau.org/