Mental health help — Weston County will benefit from grant
A newly announced $2.4 million grant from the Helmsley Charitable Trust will bring virtual crisis care to Wyoming, and both the Weston County Sheriff’s Office and Newcastle Police Department are actively trying to join the program.
The trust, alongside Gov. Mark Gordon, announced the grant that will be given to the Wyoming Association of Sheriffs and Chiefs of Police on Aug. 5.
According to information from the Helmsley Charitable Trust, the grant aims to “help officers across the state’s rural and frontier landscape provide Wyoming residents in crisis with 24/7 access to behavioral health professionals via telehealth.”
“Wyoming’s population of nearly 588,000 is spread over more than 97,000 square miles, providing unique challenges for a coordinated behavioral health crisis-care response across the state,” the release says. “Virtual Crisis Care, which is launching in a handful of counties with plans to expand statewide, where needed, will ensure that Wyoming’s most remote residents receive necessary and timely behavioral health care.”
It notes that “Virtual Crisis Care equips Wyoming law enforcement officers with tablets, allowing them to call on trained experts to de-escalate, assess, and stabilize individuals in a mental health crisis such as suicidal ideation, self-harm, or depression.”
“The Weston County Sheriff’s Office sees this announcement as being a tool to help in rural communities to help individuals in a mental health crisis, which seem to have limited resources on how to best help them get and in contact with professionals along with getting them continued care for after a crisis with local providers,” Undersheriff Dan Fields told the News Letter Journal. “We have an interest in joining into the program and are currently working on getting on the program.”
He said that this program would benefit the whole community and Newcastle Police Chief Derek Thompson agreed.
“I am excited to see how this program may help people in crisis, in a less invasive, and hopefully, a more effective way. Mental health crisis is something we struggle to deal with in this community,” Thompson said. “Not unlike many small towns across the state, we don’t have the resources here to appropriately assist those in crisis.”
Thompson will also request to be a part of the program.
“I think we would be crazy not to try something new that has the potential to be a very helpful tool for those in our community who may struggle, and one that may help our staff save a lot of time and resources that are often exhausted using the procedures currently in place for helping those who may suffer a mental health crisis,” he said.
At this time, Thompson said that these situations involve an officer being tasked with determining, through various means, if a person is a danger to themselves or others due to mental illness. He said it basically comes down to an “evidence-based judgment call.”
Both Fields and Thompson said that officers and deputies do whatever they can to assist individuals in these situations, but admitted that they are not trained in the same way as mental health professionals.
“This program is for someone in a mental health crisis and can get them in contact with a licensed provider virtually 24/7 and be able to be given an assessment for what is the best plan of action in the field. The crisis response team discusses recommended next steps with law enforcement and works with the local providers to reach out to the individual for follow-up care,” Fields said. “The current procedure for handling someone with a mental health crisis is either a voluntary evaluation at the hospital or other mental health providers, or emergency detention.”
The pilot program is modeled after similar Helmsley-funded efforts in both South Dakota and Nevada. According to the release, more than 80% of encounters “result in the person staying in place with plans for local follow-up care.”
Allen Thompson, the executive director of the Wyoming Association of Sheriffs and Chiefs of Police, told the News Letter Journal that this grant is important for Wyoming for several reasons.
“We currently do not have statewide immediate access to mental health professionals 24/7/365. That leaves an officer/deputy making decisions about best outcomes based on training and past experience, none of which are to the level that a mental health professional possesses in evaluating people in crisis,” he said. “Additionally, an involuntary detention can be a way to start ongoing treatment for those in need, and this process initiates that treatment opportunity without necessarily detaining the person in crisis.”
Currently, Thompson said, officers don’t always have access to mental health services for people in crisis, leaving them to recommend a person to services at a later time or taking them into custody for emergency detention.
Costs associated with these emergency detentions vary from location to location, he said, adding that reducing the emergency detentions pursuant to “Title 25 would save time and
funds from the officer, to the local hospital, the state hospital and various levels of funding along the way.”
When asked about potential local cost savings, Fields said that the cost varies depending on where individuals are treated, the type of treatment and other circumstances. Costs associated with Title 25 detentions are often discussed by the Board of Weston County Commissioners, who have repeatedly raised concerns over what they call an unfunded mandate.
“If this program fills the gap on the front end and allows a person to get out-patient treatment, our hope is that the person’s mental health does not degrade to the point where emergency detention or criminal violations occur due to mental health,” Thompson said.
Access to mental health care varies across the state, and Thompson said the program could also help open up bed space at treatment facilities and the state hospital.
“Some (communities) have robust programs with co-responders, and some have virtual access to local or national mental health providers. The local community mental health providers have a presence in each county, but their availability is not always guaranteed,” Thompson said. “This program fills that gap and still puts the person into contact with the local provider for ongoing care.”
According to Thompson, the $2.4 million grant pays for the program for up to three years, with an evaluation of success and ongoing costs being given to local and state governments at the conclusion of the grant. At this time, “government agencies can weigh effectiveness and cost before committing to ongoing usage,” he said.
About the Helmsley Charitable Trust
The Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust aspires to improve lives by supporting exceptional efforts in the U.S. and around the world in health and select place-based initiatives. Since beginning active grant making in 2008, Helmsley has committed more than $4.5 billion for a wide range of charitable purposes. Helmsley’s Rural Healthcare Program funds innovative projects that use information technologies to connect rural patients to emergency medical care, bring the latest medical therapies to patients in remote areas and provide state-of-the-art training for rural hospitals and EMS personnel. To date, this program has awarded more than $800 million to organizations and initiatives in the states of Hawaii, Iowa, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming, and the two U.S. Pacific territories of American Samoa and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. For more information, visit helmsleytrust.org.
Source: Helmsley Charitable Trust website