Litigation Support Services
Training and Consulting Services makes individual forensic consultation available to plaintiffs or defendants involved in the litigation process. Based on Dr. White's 26 years of experience as a clinician, mental heath program administrator, and suicide prevention coordinator in the Federal Bureau of Prisons, Dr White is fully aware of the challenges and hazards faced by correctional professionals at all levels of your organization. He offers timely, thorough and reliable information that is essential to anyone involved in any stage of the litigation process. Services are offered for professionals such as mental health practitioners, lawyers, physician, and law enforcement personnel who find themselves in need of impartial professional expertise and opinion on these critical constitutionally mandated programs
Psychological Autopsy and Suicide Reconstruction
The more unique service of conducting a psychological autopsy is available to anyone needing a thorough evaluation of an equivocal death or for those seeking to identify possible causes for a suicidal death. A psychological autopsy consists of conducting face-to-face interviews with friends, family, doctors, and other parties who had contact with the deceased. Through this process, a psychological profile of the person is constructed in an effort to understand the feelings, motives and behaviors that led to the death. In addition to personal interviews, this procedure typically includes a review of available records and file materials that describe the subject and, where possible, a comprehensive case formulation developed through consultation with other experienced professionals. With sufficient data, a psychological autopsy can create a mosaic picture that can shed light on the factors leading to questionable deaths or suicide.
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Unique Professional Experience
Working with offender populations requires blending traditional mental health treatment with sound correctional practices, a combination of skills rarely acquired by community based practitioners.
Nevertheless, non-correctional mental health professionals are often called to give expert opinion regarding standards of care and treatment in prison or jail suicide cases. Often these professionals do so with little direct knowledge about correctional policies and procedures and even less familiarity with this unique client population. Even worse, in some cases administrators with no mental health training offer opinions concerning the clinical factors related to an offender suicide.
In contrast, Dr. White’s many years of clinical as well as administrative experience in policy development, staff training, and program oversight, gives him a much broader perspective about the issues surrounding prison suicide and mental health treatment. Moreover, few other clinicians have developed the level of expertise necessary to understand the complicated interface between the legal and mental health professions. Dr. White has been an expert witness, testifying in criminal, civil, and administrative law proceedings. He has provided a wide range of services for both plaintiff and defense attorneys. This unique combination of professional experiences affords Dr. White a level of insight about clinical, administrative, and legal matters that is beyond the experience of most correctional experts.
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