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Since 1949, our country has recognized the month of May as Mental Health Awareness Month. Each year, the Mental Health America organization adopts a new theme in order to promote public awareness of mental health issues. In line with this year’s theme, “You are Not Alone,” the Metropolitan Court, with its criminal justice partners, has joined with the New Mexico Behavioral Health Services Division (BHSD) and the University of New Mexico to develop and implement a program to provide support to individuals with mental illness who enter the criminal justice system.
Our program, the Forensic Navigation Program, a first-of-its-kind in our state, will work to transform how we respond to people with mental illness charged with crimes. The program will start by assisting those charged with minor crimes, called misdemeanors. The program has the ultimate goal of moving those individuals from the j