How Mental Health Deputies and area school districts are helping the Mental Health Crisis

In Liberty County, specially trained law officers are working alongside counselors to better serve people with mental health problems, working to get them treatment rather than jail time.

Liberty County Sheriff ’s Deputy Chance Maddox is one of four certifi ed mental health deputies and the training officer for the sheriff ’s mental health division. Maddox has years in crisis prevention and said his experience has shaped how he views his work with people in a mental health crisis.

“They might not have the same thoughts that you do, but to them, the reality is different than what your reality is. But it doesn’t make them wrong,” said Maddox. “We just have to listen and meet them in the middle. They’re human beings, even if they are not like ourselves, or not thinking like we consider to be rational thinking. We need to treat them like humans.”

By law, all Texas officers must complete 40 hours of mental health training, but certified mental health officers get additional training from the Texas Commission on Law Enforcement, also known as TCOLE. The goal of the program is to divert people in need of mental health services away from hospitals and jails and into the most cost-effective community-based treatment, according to Texas Health and Human Services.

“A good thing about mental health is we’re typically the voice for someone, who doesn’t have a voice,” said Maddox.

Maddox said his team refers a crisis and refers people to health resources.

“As far as the job themselves, we are called responsive typically,” said Maddox. “I guess like our basic routine of course would be anyone that’s in crisis of any sort rather be narcotic induced or just a mental illness of any sort, we respond to calls and services.”

Texas ranks last when it comes to access to mental health care in the U.S., according to Mental Health America, a national nonprofit dedicated to the promotion of mental health, well- being and illness prevention. Rural areas often have little to no access to help without any guidance on how to cope with their mental health.

Kids are having a particularly difficult time, said Evan Roberson, executive director of Tri- County Behavioral Healthcare, the local mental health authority serving Liberty County. Evans has seen an increase in children ages 5 to 9 who are having mental health crises as part of the fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic.

“It’s not so rare anymore,” Roberson said. “We see a lot of trends around the management of the stress associated with COVID that are disturbing.”

Sgt. Rebecca Skillern, M.A, LPC-supervisor for the Houston Police Department said schools can be an important resource for mental health awareness.

“Depending on the mental illness, you can have depression and/or behavior problems that manifest way before a diagnosis ever becomes part of that person’s life,” said Skillern. “And schools are the ones who are going to notice that.”

Liberty ISD doesn’t have its own police force but works with the Liberty Police Department to serve its schools. The district also offers free mental health services to students, according to Lola Jones, a licensed professional counselor with the district.

“We have a program that is funded by the state. It’s called TCHATT. It is Texas Children’s Health Access to Telemedicine, and they offer more services outside of counseling,” said Jones. “They will meet with a student virtually and the benefit is that they can do it here at school.” Liberty ISD has five counselors that oversee four campuses, each offering various safety protocols, such as suicide and threat assessment. The school district offers anxiety programs and substance abuse hotlines that are free and available to all students.

Access to mental health care is crucial for every community, said Greg Hansch, the executive director of the National Alliance on Mental Health (NAMI)-Texas and a licensed-master’s level social worker.

“Our mental health professional shortage areas, including basically all of the rural counties, people have expressed the need for more counseling services, more transportation and more crisis services,” said Hansch. “Mental health treatment facilities are lacking in rural areas. The psychiatric hospitals and crisis facilities tend to be concentrated in urban areas.”

There are several groups that advocate for mental health. Roberson said it is important to get people the help they need rather than putting them in jail.

“Before they’re [a person in a mental health crisis] involved officially with the law enforcement system, you would take them to a facility like ours in Conroe,” said Roberson. “You would have them screened and hospitalized and you would work with them that way rather than criminalizing the behavior, so that is the ideal form of diversion.”

Roberson said Liberty County’s growing population has created even more demand for access to mental health resources.

If you know someone who needs help, contact the 24-hour crisis hotline associated Tri- County Behavorial Healthcare for Liberty County, at 1-800659-6994. Ashlyn Killian is a journalism and performance major at Texas State University and a contributor to Texas Community Health News, a collaboration between the School of Journalism and Mass Communication, and the university’s Translational Health Research Center. TCHN stories, reports and data visualizations are provided free to Texas newsrooms.