CORONAVIRUS (COVID-19) RESOURCE CENTER Read More
Add To Favorites

County eyes grant for services County leaders seek grant to help with gaps in mental health services

Waco Tribune-Herald - 7/1/2018

McLennan County leaders are looking to help provide local mental health professionals and law enforcement with the tools needed for a more proactive approach to working with people who may be better served by treatment than jail time.

Local agencies are teaming up to apply for a grant aimed at reducing law enforcement's time on behavioral-health related calls, or, put another way, money spent in the judicial system on people behind bars who do not need to be there.

The McLennan County Sheriff's Office has had a mental health unit for about five years, and while the program has benefits, it is more reactive than proactive, Chief Deputy David Kilcrease said.

"If you can help people out and keep them from going into a severe crisis, then you can keep them safer and the public safer at the same time," Kilcrease said.

The state has continued over the years to cut funding for programs that help people with mental health issues, he said.

"As a state, we are doing horrible," Kilcrease said. "Somebody has to do something. These are our citizens that are in crisis."

In an effort to help fill in the cracks in service, the Heart of Texas Region MHMR, with the support of the sheriff's office and McLennan County commissioners, is applying for a grant to help fund a crisis intervention team.

The role of law enforcement continues to change over the years, Kilcrease said.

If a police officer 20 to 30 years ago came upon someone acting out in a crisis, they would have just put them in jail and moved on, he said.

"To a degree, that still happens today," Kilcrease said. "We end up with mentally ill ending up in jail and it's a drain on resources on our jail."

A more proactive approach would involve a team that gets to know people in the community dealing with mental health issues, he said. The team could check on individuals before issues come up, making sure they have access to needed medications or rides to doctor's appointments, he said. The grant would allow a law enforcement officer to work with a mental health caseworker, bringing two professionals with different types of experience to the situation, he said.

"You can build relationships and know who the people are in your community who need that type of help," Kilcrease said.

There is some information law enforcement is not permitted to keep in a database, including medical information, that a mental health professional could access in a time of need, he said.

"What we're trying to move into is a more proactive role and, again, one the county commissioners realize there's a real shortfalling here and people are falling through the cracks and we have to come up with a way to address it," Kilcrease said. "To me, I am excited to see something like this come to McLennan County and to the city of Waco."

Precinct 4 County Commissioner Ben Perry said the proposal is a great idea.

"At some point in time, we have to quit ignoring this problem," Perry said.

Cities throughout the country have various models for similar teams, Kilcrease said. MHMR and the sheriff's office hopes to replicate a model used in Colorado, Kilcrease said.

The county is applying for a grant through the state's Mental Health Grant Program, which is intended to reduce recidivism rates, arrests and incarceration among people with mental illness.

"There just comes a point in time where we have to change a model as to how we approach behavioral health," Dana LaFayette, director of Behavioral Justice and Veteran Services at the Heart of Texas Region MHMR, recently told county commisisoners.

The grant could help put a mental health professional with dispatchers to divert calls from the start or even to resolve issues over the phone, LaFayette said.

"The Waco Police Department currently reports receiving three calls daily of suicide in progress," according to county documents. "These calls are a person calling indicating they want to end their life, but does not indicate they have the intent, means, or plan to follow through. With the creation of this project, these calls can be intercepted by a qualified mental health professional that can activate a crisis response, resolve the issue during the call, or arrange for followup support for the individual. This is expected to reduce the time and frequency law enforcement is involved and reduces the likelihood the person will be taken to jail. It also increases the potential for the individual to gain access to appropriate treatment in a timely manner."

Last month, the Tribune-Herald reported a plan to convert the vacant, nine-story, 600,000-square-foot former Hillcrest Baptist Medical Center into a state-owned mental health facility was shelved indefinitely. Local and state leaders said the plan would have eased the statewide mental health crisis and brought 1,000 new jobs to the area.

The eight hospitals offering inpatient psychiatric services to patients under civil or criminal orders are in Austin, Big Spring, El Paso, Rusk, San Antonio, Terrell, Wichita Falls and Harlingen. Two other state hospitals provide psychiatric treatment in maximum-security inpatient facilities for people in the criminal justice system, and the Waco Center for Youth provides adolescent residential treatment services.