FORT SMITH -- Officials in western Arkansas are anticipating a January opening for a medical clinic to receive and treat mentally ill people who are in crisis and would otherwise end up in the county jail.
A building at Fort Smith's Western Arkansas Counseling and Guidance Center will be renovated and become a crisis stabilization unit for western Arkansas' six-county catchment area that will comprise Crawford, Franklin, Logan, Polk, Scott and Sebastian.
The 16-bed unit is to become one of four around the state in counties chosen to participate in a pilot program aimed at keeping mentally ill people from being put in jail or taken to hospital emergency rooms during psychiatric crises that draw the attention of law enforcement officers.
Each of the counties that will have a unit -- Craighead, Pulaski, Sebastian and Washington -- were awarded grants totaling $1.6 million for operation of the units.
The Sebastian County Quorum Court appropriated its grant Tuesday, but County Judge David Hudson said most of it will be spent when the Fort Smith unit opens next year.
Sebastian County is responsible for costs of preparing the unit to open. The Quorum Court voted Tuesday to appropriate $44,000 from two county sales tax funds to supplement the $140,000 in county funds already allocated to renovate the guidance center's building.
Hudson said in a memo to Quorum Court members that the additional expense arose when architects re-evaluated the unit's design and after the state updated requirements for the unit.
"There are a lot of moving pieces, and it's an ambitious endeavor for the state to work with four different entities," he said.
Guidance center CEO Rusti Holwick described renovation work on the building as minor, such as opening walls to improve line of sight with the nurse's station.
Construction contracts have not been awarded, and there is no definite date for work to be completed. Hudson, Holwick and Sheriff Bill Hollenbeck said they hoped the unit would open by the end of January. A memo by Hudson said the unit could open as late as mid-February.
Officials in Sebastian County and around the state have worked for years on a way to keep mentally ill people from landing in jail or going to emergency rooms when they suffer psychotic episodes that make them violent and a danger to themselves and others.
Officials complain that there is nowhere to take these people, so they end up in emergency rooms and jails. Hollenbeck has said county jails are the largest psychiatric facilities in the state.
Hollenbeck told members of the Sebastian County Criminal Justice Coordinating Committee last month that six to 15 people with mental illnesses or suicidal tendencies are taken to the Sebastian County jail each week. Hudson said 80-90 mentally ill people show up at emergency rooms in Fort Smith each month.
The crisis stabilization unit at the guidance center will be open 24 hours a day and will be staffed by doctors, registered nurses and paraprofessionals, Holwick said.
"We anticipate people will be brought in and admitted around the clock," she said.
People taken to the crisis stabilization unit will be assessed and treated for up to 72 hours. They also will be introduced to follow-up programs for ongoing help with their illnesses.
Holwick said operating the unit won't be a strain on the guidance center. The center is accustomed to working with law enforcement officers, the poor and the jail population.
As work proceeds on developing the crisis stabilization unit, law enforcement agencies participating in the pilot program have started training officers to recognize and properly handle mentally ill people they come in contact with.
In early November, 30 officers from western and northwestern Arkansas attended a weeklong training program in Fayetteville with experts from organizations such as the Arkansas Law Enforcement Training Academy and the National Alliance on Mental Illness.
Ultimately, Hollenbeck said, officers who undergo the training will pass their training on to others in their departments, and new officers will get training on mental illness at the police training academy.
Officers in the training sessions in Fayetteville were given information about mental illness, received training on how best to deal with mentally ill people in crisis, heard from mentally ill people about their experiences with law enforcement officials and engaged in role playing, Holwick said.
Hollenbeck said officers told him they found it helpful to meet with people who have mental illnesses and to get their views on what it is like to go through an episode and how responding officers could de-escalate such situations.
It is a challenge for law enforcement officers to train for the pilot program, Hollenbeck said. While 15 officers undertook training from western Arkansas, the number represents only one or two from each department in the six-county catchment area.
Hollenbeck said he plans to hold another training session in Sebastian County at the beginning of 2018 and to invite police chiefs from departments in the catchment area to send officers.
"I'm excited about it," Hollenbeck said. "We're hoping to get as many people trained in the state of Arkansas within law enforcement as quickly as we can."
Training also will be given to jailers and 911 operators. Hollenbeck said ensuring that a situation is handled properly begins with the 911 operator. If that person can recognize a possible mental health issue, the operator can alert officers responding to the call so they can de-escalate what could turn into a volatile situation, he said.
State Desk on 11/26/2017