County mental health efforts stall at state level

Despite state lawmakers purporting to prioritize mental health funding and programs for rural communities during the last legislative session, County officials said a mobile mental health team they lobbied for is not eligible for state grant funds.

The County had begun writing an application for a $1.2 million grant from funds set aside by the Legislature last year for continuing mental health services.

Days before the grant application deadline, the County’s grant writer determined that the the proposal by Olney Police Chief Dan Birbeck to create teams of a mental health peace officer, a counselor, and an emergency medical technician or nurse to provide 24hour coverage for mental health calls did not fit the grant guidelines.

Young County Judge Win Graham said the fine print of the grant limited the funds to “a store front where people under age 14 could voluntarily go and get mental health services.”

“It’s designed for big cities,” Judge Graham said of the grant program. “It doesn’t do anything for rural Texas.”

The failure of the grant effort was especially tragic in the wake of the fatal shooting last week of a Graham teenager who attacked and stabbed a police officer during a mental health crisis, Judge Graham said.

“The rejection couldn’t have come at a worse time because the shooting ... is the exact thing that [the mobile mental health unit] could have helped with,” he said.

“Chief Birbeck and I are going to sit down ... try to come up with a scaled back version ... and have a meeting ... to see if this is something that everyone would want to participate in.”

The cities of Olney and Graham and both cities’ hospitals and school districts had signed on to the plan.