I commend the bill for putting forward a vision of culture change in the correctional system.
The bill calls for an increase in staffing of mental health professionals. I wanted to ask you if you could give the committee your view of who the women and men would be who would deliver these services.
The question is focused on how much experience a mental health professional would have to have with the correctional system to be able to effectively interact with and serve inmates who suffer from mental health issues. In other words, could these be mental health practitioners who have had no previous contact with correctional services at all, or do they need to have some familiarity with exacerbating factors that may pop up within the system to be able to deliver services effectively?
If it's the latter, where do we find those people?