Cayuga County mobile mental health crisis resources poised to expand
The CitizenMay 09, 2022
May 8—Mobile mental health crisis resources that help law enforcement and provide a direct line to assistance for community members are set to expand in
Both the
In an interview with The Citizen Wednesday,
Schenck said he is glad
"I'm very encouraged by the fact that we're going to have this additional resource and that they saw the urgency and the need to do this," he said. "It will allow us to have a mental health response to a mental health incident instead of a law enforcement response (for a situation) that really warrants specialized training and credentials to address a mental health crisis."
An additional aspect of this expansion is that these crisis teams are going to be available to the public, so "the public will be able to call a phone number and potentially have a mobile crisis response without having to have a law enforcement response, if that's appropriate," Schenck said. These services also span to those in crisis who are dealing with addiction.
The county Legislature's resolution also said the mental health center will designate two jobs to assist the day time team. One of those positions will be a staff social worker "to begin the operations of the day time mobile crisis team," the resolution continued, adding that the county director of community services "is authorized to fill the current staff social worker position." The center will also create an additional support position in the near future, the resolution said.
"We're still in the process of developing this program, all the details of this program, because it's new for us," Walsh said. "During this hiring process, we hope to have all those things ironed out so that when people are hired we can train them and then we can start this program as soon as we possibly can."
Walsh said there is plan for how this day team would operate.
"They work as a team, so they would be responding to crisis calls, as well as calls from law enforcement and it can be schools, it can be any other agencies in the county who have an individual in crisis or in distress. They would contact the mental health center, and then they would be evaluating those calls and would be going out mobile as a team, meeting people where they're at," she said. "If law enforcement goes on a call and they feel like it's a mental health call and they could use talking to mobile crisis, or a therapist, then the team will mobilize to where (the person having the crisis) is located."
Team members would then be assessing the situation, completing assessments with the individual in question, safety planning with them and making referrals for resources, among other duties, Walsh continued.
Having previously been a mobile crisis therapist with Liberty Resources, Walsh said she is excited to get started.
"I've seen how well it works, how you can see people right in the moment and then you can see them also get connected to services and then continue services," she said. "These might be people that wouldn't have normally got connected to a counselor or to other services. So it's really neat how you're meeting them in the community and able to make those referrals and make that connection happen and that linkage to support. It's really cool to see and I think this program could have a lot of benefit to this county during those day time hours, expanding people's access to it."
During an
"When mobile crisis comes to those calls, once we deem the scene safe and they feel comfortable, they take it from there, our officers are relieved and goes on additional calls," Slayton said. "What happens now is two officers have to go up to the hospital and oftentimes we're there for hours waiting for the patient to be seen. Mobile crisis, what they do is take that over and
Staff writer
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