DENVER — Brain injuries often go undiagnosed in correctional institutions, and a $1.2 million grant awarded to the Brain Injury Alliance of Colorado (BIAC) will further the nonprofit organization's mission to change that.
The grant from the Caring for Denver Foundation will help BIAC continue screening to identify brain injuries in the Denver jail and reduce the likelihood that people involved in the legal system will reoffend when they return to the community, the nonprofit said.
"There's a number of symptoms associated with brain injury. The biggest one we see is emotional dysregulation," said Sarah Covey, a Denver re-entry specialist with BIAC. "When you can't regulate your emotions, then you're likely to engage in other risky behaviors that can cause you to have offenses that land you back in the legal system."
She said 60% to 80% of people they work with are experiencing a brain injury they don't know about. BIAC looks for symptoms or social history that might suggest such an injury. It could be things like difficulty with memory, or difficulty tracking what's going on within a courtroom. Then, she said, they identify resources to help them deal with a brain injury, like medical treatment, therapy and other supports.
"Without programs like this, folks don't know about their brain injuries," Covey said. "They don't know about their symptoms. They don't know how to manage those symptoms. They don't have strategies to manage those symptoms, and they continue to be in-and-out of legal systems with frequent recidivism. They really need support to learn about themselves and how to manage that."
Her husband, Alex Covey, 40, is a survivor of brain injuries as a child and teenager from skateboarding. He said he entered the legal system when he was 20 years old and it took him 13 years to complete his time there.
"After my teenage brain injuries, I was really, really unregulated in my emotions, really taking a lot of risky behavior, ended up getting into fights and getting some assault charges," he said. "I served two and a half years in jail, and that was post-brain injury, and so navigating the jail system was also incredibly difficult."
Alex Covey said he did not get screened for brain injuries initially but that he was placed in treatment court where he was connected to similar resources and support. He currently has a case manager at BIAC.
"I was struggling in the legal system," he said. "I was getting in more trouble violating, and when I got into treatment court, I saw a huge difference in how I was able to complete probation. I think that having the resources to utilize therapy, utilize these positive situations in jail that should be more widespread. It was really instrumental in me having a successful jail experience and a successful experience out on probation."
Sheriff Elias Diggins said the Denver jail started screening inmates for brain injuries more than 10 years ago. He said it started with a pilot program proposed by Dr. Kim Gorgens from the University of Denver and Dr. Jennifer Gafford, who was a staff psychologist for the Denver County Sheriffs Department at the time.
"They asked me if they could do a study of folks that were in custody to see if they had traumatic brain injuries (TBI), and the results of that study were astounding," Diggins said. "Helping them to recognize what a traumatic brain injury is, how they can deal with those traumatic brain injuries and get support services, not just while the here, but also in the community, can help them to break the cycles of recidivism and become better people when they go home."
Through this work, he said, Gorgens and Gafford began to help inmates receive treatment and support relative to their TBIs.
"Ninety-seven percent of the people that are in our custody are coming back to the community," Diggins said. "For us, it's about helping them to get better, so that when they leave, they can become more productive citizens."
Not all inmates are screened for brain injury, but each one is screened for a mental health condition, Diggins said.
Lorez Meinhold, with the Caring for Denver Foundation, said this grant will double the amount of services being offered, including more screenings and more clinical services counseling to help inmates struggling with brain injuries.
"Brain injury is a lot of times misunderstood or not recognized," Meinhold said. "And so, part of the challenge to getting people connected to the right care is recognizing that there is a brain injury, recognizing we need to screen for that and then recognizing that we need to provide the right care to help them thrive."