Huron County's law enforcement do their best to provide behavioral health treatment

NORWALK — Police are usually the first to respond to mental health crises, which is becoming controversial as the discussion of police reform continues due to the Black Lives Matter movement. Geoffrey Melada, director of communications for the Treatment Advocacy Center, said a report found that law enforcement spends 1/5 of their time on mental health calls and an average of 10 percent of law enforcement agencies' budgets were spent responding to and transporting those with mental illnesses in 2017. The Treatment Advocacy Center also found that the average distance transporting an individual in a mental health crisis to a medical facility was 5 times farther than the distance to transport them to jail. "We also found the reasons that police are so often called to do these responses is that it is, on average, five times longer to get a mental health facility than a jail for most responses," Melada said. "So, perhaps unsurprisingly, police are the ones who respond and jails are where people end up." Melada said they recommend police departments follow best practices of Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) program training, and the training should be voluntary for officers who are interested in having "a larger role in this specialized law enforcement mental health response." "However, because all law enforcement officers may come into contact with someone experiencing a mental health crisis, all officers, especially patrol, should have some training and mental health response and de-escalation," Melada said. Norwalk's former police chief and current mayor, Dave Light, said the police department works with the Huron County Board of Mental Health and Addiction Services (MHAS) to provide resources to those with mental illness in custody. While chief, Light said about half of the police officers in Norwalk's department went through CIT, but when the recession hit, funds for training dried up. He said he believes CIT should be mandatory for officers to go through. "When you step out of your cruiser, the officer, he or she has to immediately assess the situation and act, and you have split seconds," Norwalk's mayor said. "You never know what stage of mental illness they're in or what they're diagnosed with. Someone who's bipolar and acting manic will act differently than someone who's into a deep depression." Light said Huron County is fortunate to have Fisher-Titus so close because those involved in a mental health call have to be evaluated by a physician. He said 30 years ago they had to travel to Toledo's mental health center. At Huron County Jail, jail administrator Chuck Summers said the jail has a counselor that comes several times a week. "They do a whole lot of different things, deal with people in crisis, and then make a determination whether or not they need to be sent to the psychiatric hospital or some other facility," Summers said. "We make the arrangements to have them transported somewhere for treatments. Unless of course, it's just a counseling issue here, that they can do while incarcerated here, but they're very well taken care of from that standpoint." When people are released from jail, they are given contact information to continue mental health services, Summers said. "We're starting should be here in the next couple of weeks, a packet that would give people with some drug and alcohol problems resources when they leave here to continue with any kind of counseling or help that they may need for addictions or anything else. It's up to them whether they follow up or not." He said mental health has been one of the biggest hurdles for the jail and is a work in progress. "We've had a real good rapport with Firelands and some of the other agencies and stuff, as far as getting these people help. It seems to be working pretty well from our standpoint in here anyway," Summers said. Ron Bruno, executive director of CIT International, said due to an underfunded behavioral health system, law enforcement became the primary responders for mental health crises. "Law enforcement is actually very good at trying to address those issues, but unfortunately the funding never did go to the mental health system. Law enforcement had to try to figure out ways to actually become better at it and that's where CIT actually was developed," Bruno said. "It is a law enforcement based program that really does try to build those community partnerships to build the community, behavioral health services. As time has progressed though we are now starting to see a shift of the realization that we do need to build community crisis response services, independent of law enforcement." He said most of the time, the crisis calls that go to 911 do not require a law enforcement response and could be handled by a crisis line or community response team. Bruno said all police officers should not go through CIT because it takes a "special officer to actually have the desire to work with this special population." "We need to identify those special officers give them the specialized training and make them specialists that they need to be so when a call for service comes up involving behavioral health issues and it justifiably requires a law enforcement response, we have a trained specialist that can go out," Bruno said. "Not only to identify that they're dealing with behavioral health issues but be able to de-escalate it. But then on top of it, know their community resources well enough that they can get this person connected to the help that they need." He said communities need to build up behavioral health resources by creating 24/7 crisis lines, and a "warm line" for those who are not in crisis but need to speak with someone. "Most crisis calls for service can be resolved at that level without ever sending law enforcement out into the field. If we do need to send somebody out, we don't want to necessarily send police if there's not a level of danger that requires it," Bruno said. "We need to build what is called a mobile crisis outreach team. Hopefully, that is made up by a clinician, and the second person would be a certified peer specialist." He said these mobile crisis teams can provide stabilizing care for those in crisis without ever leaving their homes. Huron County Sheriff Todd Corbin said the office and jail work with MHAS to help find placement for those who need to be admitted and several other agencies and organizations to help provide resources for those in need. With CIT, Corbin said any officer in law enforcement for a period of time can handle almost any situation. "Obviously, some people are better than others. But for the most part, everyone's professional and they're good at what they do," Corbin said. "And they know that if they're not suited for something, there's someone they can reach out to." Corbin said most counselors prefer to help and treat patients after they've been subdued and if counselors helped respond to mental health calls, it could create a liability. While using restraint or getting physical with someone is a rare occurrence, Corbin said, it sometimes is necessary if the person is unable to be talked down. "We can reach out to get them someplace where they can be treated and treated well. There's quite a bit out there that can help. The hardest part for us is finding people to take advantage of it," he said. "If you're mentally ill and you don't know you need the help, then we obviously have to take the position of protecting you against yourself and making hard decisions." Melada said Salt Lake City moved from police to ambulances and now are using non-emergency vehicles to respond to mental health calls. "Their model was picked up by CIT International's best practices guide, which calls for law enforcement to not even be included as co-responders," Melada said. "In southern Arizona, a collaboration between law enforcement and mental health providers – a hybrid police/non-police model – has fostered one of the most innovative prevention and crisis response models for persons with mental illness in the United States." Corbin said he uses local programs, like peer support groups and Area Law Enforcement Recovery Team, that have proven themselves to work and help mentally ill people in the area. "I'm very passionate about what we do and it's not just a job, it is truly a lifestyle. Because you gotta be the same person in uniform as you are out," Corbin said. "I'm honored and humbled at the fact that the people elected me to do this job because they believe in me. I don't want to disappoint them."