COLAB is an international collaboration of researchers and professionals from the UK, Switzerland, Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands and Finland and is funded by the Horizon2020 Marie Curie Sklodowska RISE Action (2017-2021). The project is dedicated to Improving Interagency collaboration between Criminal Justice Services and Mental Health Services, based on interventionist methodologies and Activity Theory. to develop better models of collaboration between the MHS and CS.

Effective collaboration between mental health (MHS) and criminal justice services (CS) impacts on mental illness of offenders and reduces reoffending rates. Service leaders have indicated a need for more effective models of collaboration, however.

We wish to explore professionals’ and users' perceptions of collaborative interagency practices in MHS and CS in English criminal justice and mental health services, to inform the development of these better models. It aims at understanding their experience from interagency collaboration, in a context of tight interplay of State, private and Third Sectors services.