Moderator Leon Evans (Vice Chair, NAC0's Justice and Public Safety Steering Committee) leads a panel presentation during the National Association of Counties' Policy Symposium to "Safely Lower Jail and Juvenile Detention Populations by Doing It Smarter". Panelists included Patrick Flemming (Salt Lake County), Gilbert Gonzales (Bexar County), and Matthew D'Alessandro (Sandy Utah), January 27, 2012 Fulton County, Atlanta, Georgia.
Friday, January 27, 2012
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
Wednesday, December 21, 2011
Thursday, December 8, 2011
Tuesday, November 1, 2011
Treatment, not jail, often is seen as the best solution. CIT Training continues.
Training helps officers deal with mentally ill
Treatment, not jail, often is seen as the best solution.
By Gloria Padilla/gpadilla@express-news.net
Updated 08:24 p.m., Friday, October 28, 2011
The San Antonio Police Department and Bexar County Sheriff's Office have set a high standard for crisis intervention training, and that fact is making a big difference in the way law enforcement officers in Bexar County interact with people with mental illness.
The good news is that soon their standard will be the state standard.
Twenty years ago, it was not unusual for an untrained team of officers to be dispatched from the county's mental health unit in the basement of the old Bexar County Courthouse armed with a civil warrant to pick up a person with mental illness in a crisis situation.
Bexar County sheriff's Sgt. Yvonne Vann, who has decades of experience in the field, has watched the evolution take place. She has seen the positive impact crisis intervention training has had on the way situations involving people with mental illness are handled.
There were no cages in transport vehicles to separate violent passengers from the driver, she said. Typically, one county officer drove and the second one held down the person being transported.
“There were civil rights being violated back then,” she said.
Today, officers are trained to defuse volatile situations and seek the best solution without resorting to incarceration. It may mean a trip to the Center for Health Care Services or the University Hospital emergency room, resulting in a psychiatric evaluation and possible referral to a physician or the state hospital.
“This training is just one extra tool on an officer's tool belt,” Vann said.
In the past five years, there has been a big push to get more law enforcement officers involved in crisis intervention.
A year ago, San Antonio Police Chief William McManus made 40 hours of crisis intervention training mandatory for his officers. Earlier this year, it became mandatory for all Bexar County deputies. The county has received a $19,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Justice to pay for the training.
Yesterday, 34 area law enforcement officers completed a 40-hour crisis intervention training program at St. Philip's College. The class included officers from the Alamo Colleges, Bexar and Kendall counties, and even Texas Rangers. Vann was one of the instructors.
The Texas Commission on Law Enforcement Officer Standards and Education used to require only 16 hours of crisis intervention training. In recent years, the agency increased the minimum to 24 hours. Starting in 2012, law enforcement officers with Texas peace officer certification will be required to have 40 hours of training in this area.
Vann said there appear to be more cases involving mentally ill people, but she believes that is somewhat illusory. Thanks to their training, officers now more accurately assess a situation and recognize the signs and symptoms of mental illness, she said.
They are more familiar with the drugs prescribed for mental illness, she said, so by asking what kind of medication someone is using, officers can determine the type of mental illness they are dealing with and know how to interact.
For too long, a call involving a person with a mental illness led directly to jail, resulting in unnecessary and expensive incarceration.
Jail diversion programs not only are saving the county money through reduced jail-related costs, but individuals with mental illness also are being directed to agencies that can better serve their needs.
Treatment is definitely a better solution than jail any day.
gpadilla@express-news.net
Read more: http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/article/Treatment-for-mentally-ill-better-than-jail-2241568.php#ixzz1cT7OgS30
http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/article/Treatment-for-mentally-ill-better-than-jail-2241568.php
Treatment, not jail, often is seen as the best solution.
By Gloria Padilla/gpadilla@express-news.net
Updated 08:24 p.m., Friday, October 28, 2011
The San Antonio Police Department and Bexar County Sheriff's Office have set a high standard for crisis intervention training, and that fact is making a big difference in the way law enforcement officers in Bexar County interact with people with mental illness.
The good news is that soon their standard will be the state standard.
Twenty years ago, it was not unusual for an untrained team of officers to be dispatched from the county's mental health unit in the basement of the old Bexar County Courthouse armed with a civil warrant to pick up a person with mental illness in a crisis situation.
Bexar County sheriff's Sgt. Yvonne Vann, who has decades of experience in the field, has watched the evolution take place. She has seen the positive impact crisis intervention training has had on the way situations involving people with mental illness are handled.
There were no cages in transport vehicles to separate violent passengers from the driver, she said. Typically, one county officer drove and the second one held down the person being transported.
“There were civil rights being violated back then,” she said.
Today, officers are trained to defuse volatile situations and seek the best solution without resorting to incarceration. It may mean a trip to the Center for Health Care Services or the University Hospital emergency room, resulting in a psychiatric evaluation and possible referral to a physician or the state hospital.
“This training is just one extra tool on an officer's tool belt,” Vann said.
In the past five years, there has been a big push to get more law enforcement officers involved in crisis intervention.
A year ago, San Antonio Police Chief William McManus made 40 hours of crisis intervention training mandatory for his officers. Earlier this year, it became mandatory for all Bexar County deputies. The county has received a $19,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Justice to pay for the training.
Yesterday, 34 area law enforcement officers completed a 40-hour crisis intervention training program at St. Philip's College. The class included officers from the Alamo Colleges, Bexar and Kendall counties, and even Texas Rangers. Vann was one of the instructors.
The Texas Commission on Law Enforcement Officer Standards and Education used to require only 16 hours of crisis intervention training. In recent years, the agency increased the minimum to 24 hours. Starting in 2012, law enforcement officers with Texas peace officer certification will be required to have 40 hours of training in this area.
Vann said there appear to be more cases involving mentally ill people, but she believes that is somewhat illusory. Thanks to their training, officers now more accurately assess a situation and recognize the signs and symptoms of mental illness, she said.
They are more familiar with the drugs prescribed for mental illness, she said, so by asking what kind of medication someone is using, officers can determine the type of mental illness they are dealing with and know how to interact.
For too long, a call involving a person with a mental illness led directly to jail, resulting in unnecessary and expensive incarceration.
Jail diversion programs not only are saving the county money through reduced jail-related costs, but individuals with mental illness also are being directed to agencies that can better serve their needs.
Treatment is definitely a better solution than jail any day.
gpadilla@express-news.net
Read more: http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/article/Treatment-for-mentally-ill-better-than-jail-2241568.php#ixzz1cT7OgS30
http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/article/Treatment-for-mentally-ill-better-than-jail-2241568.php
Editor in Chief visits Bexar County Mentally Ill Offenders Facility
Issue Date: October 2011,
Editorial
Cleveland rocks
by Dennis G. Grantham, Editor-in-Chief
As I traveled home from last month's National Conference on Addiction Disorders (NCAD), I made a couple of very interesting field trips. One brought me face to face with 30 men and 30 women-all convicted of non-violent offenses, primarily felonies-who had been released from prison into treatment at the Mentally Ill Offender Facility operated by the Bexar County Department of Community Supervision and Corrections.
The facility is one of several housed on a fenced-in tract of land on the south side of San Antonio, and is co-located with the County's Substance Abuse Felony Punishment Facility, which houses some 90 individuals for up to six months of intensive substance abuse treatment.
These and others are part of a county-wide mental health, addiction treatment, jail diversion, family-services and homeless care partnership that was launched a decade ago by the Center for Health Care Services in San Antonio, Texas. The innovative community partnerships that have developed since have become something of a model for the rest of the country.
I'll be the first to admit that I didn't know much about the criminal justice or parole system going in, so I didn't know what to expect. But the locked, 12-foot-high chain link fence, topped with concertina wire, gave a strong hint. In the company of a CHCS psychologist, several San Antonio parole officers, and the facility's director, I was able to learn about what life was like for the mentally ill men and women being housed and treated there.
Each room held 30 individuals-many dressed in oversized orange sweatsuits stenciled with black letters. The accommodations were spartan, to say the least: windowless, whitewashed concrete block, lit by yellowing fluorescent lights. The sole furnishings were well-worn metal bunks-15 each in the mens' and womens' sleeping areas-and small crates between each bunk to house a small bundle of personal items.
Because I wasn't sure that my “visit” with the facility's residents was to last more than the time it took to look in on their quarters, I was a bit surprised to hear myself introduced as a visitor who had “come all the way from Cleveland.” Then, all eyes were on me. I felt like a tourist-in the worst sense-one more person strolling through their pain and difficulty, free to leave at any time that I wished. I felt really self-conscious, really uncomfortable.
But then, one individual, sitting on the edge of a bunk, caught my eye, and I stepped forward to greet him and shake his hand. Another, a couple of bunks away, asked, “What are you doing?” I looked around the room, and started to explain. “I'm Dennis Grantham and I'm editor of a magazine called Behavioral Healthcare, and I've come here to learn more about this program. I understand that it's one of the best of its kind in the country and not enough places have programs like this.” A few heads nodded, still inquiring, so I kept on.
“I'm sorry that I'm meeting you in these circumstances, but I want you to know that I think it takes a lot of courage to do what you are doing here. And, chances are that after you go through this program, none of you will ever be back in jail again (State statistics say that the program's recidivism rate is just 10 percent). I know this isn't easy, but I wanted to take a minute and wish all of you the best. A lot more people need treatment like this and aren't getting it, so I want to tell this story.”
As I turned to leave the room, I hoped that, for better or worse, I had said something to let them know that I cared about them and that their struggles-and the struggles of those who cared enough to develop the program that served them-might do some good for others. But I wondered-what do they think of me?
Moments later, as I turned up the hallway with my hosts, I heard a voice from the men's dorm. “What did he say?” I asked.
A voice behind me piped up: “He said ‘Cleveland Rocks.’”
Dennis G. Grantham, Editor-in-Chief
Behavioral Healthcare 2011 October;31(7):6
Source: Click Here
Editorial
Cleveland rocks
by Dennis G. Grantham, Editor-in-Chief
As I traveled home from last month's National Conference on Addiction Disorders (NCAD), I made a couple of very interesting field trips. One brought me face to face with 30 men and 30 women-all convicted of non-violent offenses, primarily felonies-who had been released from prison into treatment at the Mentally Ill Offender Facility operated by the Bexar County Department of Community Supervision and Corrections.
The facility is one of several housed on a fenced-in tract of land on the south side of San Antonio, and is co-located with the County's Substance Abuse Felony Punishment Facility, which houses some 90 individuals for up to six months of intensive substance abuse treatment.
These and others are part of a county-wide mental health, addiction treatment, jail diversion, family-services and homeless care partnership that was launched a decade ago by the Center for Health Care Services in San Antonio, Texas. The innovative community partnerships that have developed since have become something of a model for the rest of the country.
I'll be the first to admit that I didn't know much about the criminal justice or parole system going in, so I didn't know what to expect. But the locked, 12-foot-high chain link fence, topped with concertina wire, gave a strong hint. In the company of a CHCS psychologist, several San Antonio parole officers, and the facility's director, I was able to learn about what life was like for the mentally ill men and women being housed and treated there.
Each room held 30 individuals-many dressed in oversized orange sweatsuits stenciled with black letters. The accommodations were spartan, to say the least: windowless, whitewashed concrete block, lit by yellowing fluorescent lights. The sole furnishings were well-worn metal bunks-15 each in the mens' and womens' sleeping areas-and small crates between each bunk to house a small bundle of personal items.
Because I wasn't sure that my “visit” with the facility's residents was to last more than the time it took to look in on their quarters, I was a bit surprised to hear myself introduced as a visitor who had “come all the way from Cleveland.” Then, all eyes were on me. I felt like a tourist-in the worst sense-one more person strolling through their pain and difficulty, free to leave at any time that I wished. I felt really self-conscious, really uncomfortable.
But then, one individual, sitting on the edge of a bunk, caught my eye, and I stepped forward to greet him and shake his hand. Another, a couple of bunks away, asked, “What are you doing?” I looked around the room, and started to explain. “I'm Dennis Grantham and I'm editor of a magazine called Behavioral Healthcare, and I've come here to learn more about this program. I understand that it's one of the best of its kind in the country and not enough places have programs like this.” A few heads nodded, still inquiring, so I kept on.
“I'm sorry that I'm meeting you in these circumstances, but I want you to know that I think it takes a lot of courage to do what you are doing here. And, chances are that after you go through this program, none of you will ever be back in jail again (State statistics say that the program's recidivism rate is just 10 percent). I know this isn't easy, but I wanted to take a minute and wish all of you the best. A lot more people need treatment like this and aren't getting it, so I want to tell this story.”
As I turned to leave the room, I hoped that, for better or worse, I had said something to let them know that I cared about them and that their struggles-and the struggles of those who cared enough to develop the program that served them-might do some good for others. But I wondered-what do they think of me?
Moments later, as I turned up the hallway with my hosts, I heard a voice from the men's dorm. “What did he say?” I asked.
A voice behind me piped up: “He said ‘Cleveland Rocks.’”
Dennis G. Grantham, Editor-in-Chief
Behavioral Healthcare 2011 October;31(7):6
Source: Click Here
Court Ordered Treatment, Bexar County's Involuntary Outpatient Treatment Program
View this heartbreaking and hopeful documentary about how court-ordered treatment saves lives and families which opens with Bexar County's Judge Oscar Kazen and Judge Poly Jackson Spencer.
Monday, October 31, 2011
Updated Community Solutions for Effective Criminal Justice and Behavioral Health Interventions Oct. 2011
This slideshow is presented by Leon Evans, President and CEO of the Center for Health Care Services, Bexar County Texas. CHCS is the local mental health authority.
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About Me
- Gilbert R. Gonzales
- San Antonio, Bexar County, Texas, United States
- Director of Communications and Diversion Initiatives,The Center for Healthcare Services, Mental Health Authority
