Author: Cascadia Justice Collective

PAC-NW’s Three Year Plan

September 6th, 2026

Year One:

PAC-NW is about starting small and building from the ground up. Our focus is on developing genuine relationships with community partners, listening to what is already working and where support is needed, and establishing contracts that allow us to fill meaningful gaps without duplicating existing services. This phase gives PAC-NW the opportunity to grow alongside the communities and systems we hope to serve—building trust, learning from the people closest to the work, and creating a strong foundation for thoughtful, sustainable growth.

Year Two:

Building on the relationships and experience developed during our early work by expanding PAC-NW’s role as a collaborative community partner. During this phase, we will invest in workforce development and training, provide consultation and technical assistance, participate in policy and systems advocacy, and work alongside community partners to identify practical opportunities for improvement. Just as importantly, we will continue listening, gathering data, evaluating outcomes, and learning from the people who interact with these systems every day. The goal is not to grow for the sake of growth, but to build the knowledge, partnerships, and infrastructure needed to ensure that what comes next is responsive to real community needs and grounded in what we have learned together.

Year Three:

Bringing together the relationships, experience, data, and community feedback gathered throughout the first two phases we will develop and launch PAC-NW’s comprehensive service model. Rather than beginning with a predetermined program and asking the community to fit within it, the model will be shaped by the needs, strengths, and service gaps identified alongside clients, providers, courts, and community partners.

The final phase of early development will also include establishing PAC-NW as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit and developing the organizational infrastructure, multidisciplinary workforce, funding partnerships, and outcome-measurement systems necessary to sustain and continuously improve the program. The goal is to build a program informed by research, best practices and most importantly community need.
The Dream

September 6th, 2026

Early in my career I worked for a non-profit in Honolulu where attorneys, advocates, case managers, counselors all worked within the same agency supporting their clients on the same team. This is my dream for competency restoration. And this model is where my dream for PAC-NW is inspired from.

Over the years I have observed adversarial relationships develop between stakeholders who are working together to support the same clients. I have noted referrals to care not being followed up on. Agencies not returning calls, emails or outreach attempts by clients, families and colleagues. If lack of continuity, communication, collaboration, and shared mission are interfering with client outcomes then we as the professionals need to be on the same page.

My long term dream for PAC-NW is to become a forensic mental health agency known for providing all the services our competency population needs under one roof. I draw inspiration from established frameworks including the Sequential Intercept Model, Forensic Assertive Community Treatment (FACT), Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, Risk-Need-Responsivity (RNR), and other evidence-informed behavioral health and forensic interventions.

These frameworks will guide an integrated, person-centered care that addresses basic stability, clinical treatment, and recovery to legal-system navigation, competency-related support, community integration, and long-term independence.

I want…

a Defendant to come in through our doors and meet with their Defense Attorney and Mental Health Clinician for their intake.

an assessment, treatment plan and referrals completed before an initial fitness motion and hearing.

wraparound supports in place before the forensic evaluation.

neurocogntivie and neurodevelopmental issues identified, assessed, and referred out with the appropriate ongoing support.

in house coordinators to be tracking referrals, outcomes and following up with DHS, APD, DD, VA, Housing Services regularly.

our Defendants to stay with our clinical team after their cases are resolved and not have to be discharged from services just because competency has concluded.

Over the next two years I will be spending my time with my competency community. You will see me at court, I will be asking questions, I will be tracking cases I know to be high recidivism clients in my jurisdiction. I will be consulting with other counties to see what they’re missing. I will be researching therapeutic modalities, consulting with legislators and following the next legislative session.

All of this to make this dream become a reality.

I want to hear from you because I cannot do this without my community.

Email me
Why the Pacific, Why PAC-NW?

September 6th, 2026

A kelp forest depends on balance and connection. When sea otters disappeared from parts of the Pacific coast, unchecked sea urchins multiplied, consuming the kelp and transforming thriving ecosystems into barren seascapes.
Oregon’s behavioral health and justice systems face a similar challenge: when essential supports disappear, gaps compound. People cycle through courts, jails, hospitals, homelessness, and fragmented services—not because any single system failed, but because the connections that hold the larger ecosystem together have broken down.

PAC-NW was created to help restore those connections.

The kelp forest reminds us that no part of an ecosystem exists in isolation. Its resilience comes from interdependence, just as meaningful systems change requires behavioral health providers, courts, attorneys, medical professionals, community organizations, families, advocates, and people with lived experience to work together.

The Pacific itself reflects that same philosophy. We do not see the ocean as something that divides us, but as something that connects us—communities, ecosystems, and people across its shores.

That is the idea at the heart of PAC-NW: connection over fragmentation, collaboration over isolation, and the belief that when we strengthen the relationships between us, the whole ecosystem becomes stronger.

Author: Cascadia Justice Collective

PAC-NW’s Three Year Plan

The Dream

Why the Pacific, Why PAC-NW?