Jack, Young counties meet for mental health summit

Community leaders and law enforcement officials from Jack and Young County met on Dec. 14 in Jacksboro to combine forces to address the region’s mental health needs ahead of the 88th Texas Legislative session, where state lawmakers say they will prioritize mental health access.

The Legislature also will be doling out funds from a $27-billion state sales tax surplus, and local leaders say they want to be prepared with a detailed plan to present to State Sen. Drew Springer and State Rep. David Spiller, who represent Young and Jack counties. Jack County Judge Keith Umphress led the meeting. Attendees included Frank Hefner, Jack County Emergency Management Coordinator/ IT Director; Tom Parker, Olney Mayor Pro Tem; Arpegea Pagsuberon, Olney City Administrator; Stacey Rogers, Young County Commissioner Precinct 3; Dan Birbeck, Olney Police Chief; Melanie Berry, district coordinator for State Sen. Drew Springer; Dale Lovett, Olney Hamilton Hospital Board President; Jimmy Wiley, Young County Commissioner Precinct 4; Travis Babcock, Young County Sheriff, and Young County Judge Win Graham.

At issue is an ongoing lack of access to mental health facilities and care for rural citizens and the resulting expenses and problems for city and county law enforcement and governments, the attendees said. The fact that mentally ill people end up in county jails rather than treatment facilities is criminalizing mental illness, Chief Birbeck said.

“I’ve dealt with some pretty tragic cases in the hole in mental health in our region, including what I consider personal to me,” Chief Birbeck told the group. “So I’d like to see us come together and help these folks. Because there is ... literally no help for these people and they’re suffering.”

The 19-county North Texas region is supposed to have access to the North Texas State Hospital and Red River Hospital in Wichita Falls, but those facilities stopped taking patients from counties other than Wichita during the pandemic, citing staffing levels. Jack and Young counties have not had a single admission to the hospitals in more than a year, both county judges said.

“All the mental health emergency detention orders come to my desk and … I had to figure out what do with what we have available, and it’s a black hole,” Judge Umphress said. “You don’t have any resources at the end of the day and so I know this story is just the same in Jack County as it is in Olney and Graham.”

Many severely mentally ill inmates spend more time in jail waiting for treatments to return them to competency than the maximum sentences they would have served, Judge Umphress said.

The group also wants to solve the longstanding lack of aftercare for chronically mentally ill people – “frequent fliers” who repeatedly land in county jails – by deploying a task force consisting of a law enforcement officer and a social worker to make sure they are abiding by court-ordered treatment, such as taking medication and receiving counseling. The group discussed how to attract and pay for specialized mental health workers - deputies and medical assistants at the jails. The training would cost money the county doesn’t have and may attract attention from rival employers, Mr. Wiley noted.

“You get that fellow or that lady certified and they leave and go somewhere else, and it’s a revolving cycle,” he said. “We are so far behind on what the pay scale should be for people working in the mental health institutions versus what they could make working out in the secular world.”

About 20 percent of Young County Jail inmates have mental health issues, and Sheriff Babcock said he has discussed sending those inmates to Jack County, which has contracted with a local psychiatrist and psychiatric nurses to tend to inmates. The 108-bed Jack County Jail houses an average of just 11 inmates per month and could benefit from being paid to house other counties’ mentally ill inmates, Judge Umphress said.

“It would sure be a lot easier for us to just have an agreement with Young County and just ship our adults over here, and not have that budget item,” he told the group. “I’m trying to avoid us closing our jail and just outsourcing it.”

Mr. Lovett stressed that any program should have as a goal to “keep [mentally ill people] out of jails.”

“We’ve spent the majority of this conversation dealing with the law enforcement issues … but where do we go to get the prevention. How do we intervene on the community side before they get a lot [worse off]?”

The group agreed to reconvene in January and to invite neighboring counties to participate.