Bay Area Edition | June 2023

MENTAL HEALTH Galveston County, League City deploy new strategies for mental health crises

2023 HEALTH CARE EDITION

LEAGUE CITY MENTAL HEALTH CALLS League City police ocers will need to undergo the following training to become certied mental health ocers, totaling 72 hours.

people going through a mental health crisis, the department saw a need to not only react to the crisis, but play a proactive role in the community. Antley said one way the department achieves this goal is by partnering with local mental health organizations, such as the Gulf Coast Center and the Medical Behavioral Hospital of Clear Lake, and following up with the people ocers respond to. “A big part of their job would be to conduct consistent follow-up with the people that we come into contact with,” Antley said. “We can follow up and make sure that they are prescribed medication, ... keep that line of communication open, and, you know, be a resource for them to try and keep them out of crisis.” Antley said because ocers usually interact with subjects on their worst days, building relationships with people outside of their emergency crisis is crucial. “Criminalizing mental health isn’t the answer,” Antley said. “We don’t want to put people that are experienc- ing a mental health crisis in the justice system if we can help it.” Extended observation unit For the past year and a half, the League City police has partnered with the Gulf Coast Center, an organization oering mental health services to people in Galveston County. Cities throughout the county have relied on the center to provide mental health services such as counseling, follow-up care and nding safe housing. Gulf Coast Center and Galveston County plan to build a 48-hour holding center, or extended observation unit, to provide ongoing care. The facility will accommodate 10 people at a time, allowing them access to nursing;

BY RACHEL LELAND

If the department receives the grant, Antley said department ocials hope to deploy the specialized teams of two dedicated mental health ocers by fall 2023 to early 2024. However, department ocials aren’t letting that hold them up from rolling out other solutions in the meantime. As of May, 20 ocers had under- gone mental health training, and Antley said the goal is to have all of League City’s 78 uniformed ocers eventually undergo the same training. To become a certied mental health ocer, ocers must undergo 24 hours of mental health training on top of a prerequisite of 40 hours of crisis intervention training and an eight- hour class in de-escalation. In these train- ings, ocers will be required to “respond” to actors experiencing various crises, such as schizophrenia or bipolar disorder, or simulating an

The League City Police Department is preparing to roll out a new program for better responding to mental health crises in the community. In April, the department applied for a $218,000 U.S. Department of Justice grant for police departments seeking to either start or improve a mental health response unit. The money would cover the overtime of the ocers assigned and the equipment the unit needs. The department will nd out this fall if it has been awarded the grant. Capt. Stephen Antley said the decision to start a specialized mental health unit came from the volume of mental health calls dispatch received

Hours mental health training Hours de-escalation training

72 TOTAL HOURS

Hours crisis intervention training

crisis calls League City Police Department responded to in 2022. This equated to almost every other day on average. 159

is the number of mental health

SOURCE: LEAGUE CITY POLICE DEPARTMENT COMMUNITY IMPACT

and feedback from the department’s ocers. Because the feedback was anecdotal, in early 2022 the depart- ment decided to track how many times ocers either involuntarily or voluntarily com- mitted someone to a hospital. After a year of collecting data, the department discovered it was

“CRIMINALIZING MENTAL HEALTH ISN’T THE ANSWER. WE DON’T WANT TO PUT PEOPLE THAT ARE EXPERIENCING A MENTAL HEALTH CRISIS IN THE JUSTICE SYSTEM IF WE HELP IT.” STEPHEN ANTLEY, LEAGUE CITY POLICE DEPARTMENT CAPTAIN

psychiatry; counseling; crisis coun- seling; and referrals to physicians, housing and substance use disorder treatment. Gulf Coast Center CEO Felicia Jereys said the center will primarily serve Galveston County but could serve other counties for a fee. Galveston County Precinct 3 Com- missioner Stephen Holmes said the county dedicated $4 million in federal American Rescue Plan Act funds to build the unit. Holmes said the county secured an additional $8 million in state funding for operations. “This is a much-needed continuum of care,” Jeerys said. “Operationally, it will be a more ecient way to take care of our individuals, and clinically, it will be less traumatizing.”

intellectual or developmental disability. mental health team will consist of two ocers whose primary The specialized

committing someone to a hospital nearly every other day, Antley said. “That’s about the time we were like, ‘OK, we’ve identied the problem. Now we can start attacking the prob- lem with good solutions,’” he said.

job is responding to mental health calls and will respond to calls in addition to the regular front-line police ocers dispatched for emer- gency mental health calls. Based on ocers’ interactions with

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6640 South Shore Blvd., Suite 100 League City, TX 77573 713.852.6700 TexasBayCU.org

BAY AREA EDITION • JUNE 2023