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Game plan for mental health sought

News Herald - 4/22/2017

April 22--PANAMA CITY BEACH -- The Bay County Jail could aptly be described as the county's primary care facility for people with mental health and substance abuse problems, officials said.

Now, officials from various nonprofit, community care and health care agencies want to change that. They gathered Friday at the Bay County Health Department to discuss a game plan on how they might tackle the problem in a coordinated effort.

The participating agencies included the Bay County Community Health Task Force, Big Bend Community Based Care, the Bay County Sheriff's Department, the Bay County Health Department, Life Management Center and Florida Department of Children and Families.

Ann Wing, the network coordinator with Big Bend Community Based Care, which handles child welfare, substance abuse and mental health services for families, said the sheriff at any given time is treating about 200 people in the jail with mental health and substance abuse issues. She said of the about 1,000 people in the jail, nearly half have gone through agencies with which Bed Bend subcontracts for services.

Wing said programs such as A Woman's Addiction Recovery Effort don't have enough room to handle the people who need treatment.

"On average their wait is anywhere between 20 and 30 women at any given time to get into that program," she said.

From January to April of this year, 350 people were institutionalized under the Baker Act, Wing said.

"We all know that we are facing an opiate crisis, and it's not something that is unique to Bay County," she said. "It is something that is occurring across the state."

She said the sheriff's office has responded to 47 overdoses since January and last year emergency medical services responded to 465 in Bay County.

"We have to come together and start trying to address this as a community," she said.

She said one way to accomplish this is through "sequential intercept mapping," a process that involves looking at the path a person takes through the criminal justice system, identifying where needs and gaps exist and implementing services "that are going to make a difference in our community."

Community Health Task Force Chairman Steve Sumner said mental health and substance abuse is a big part of the agency's Community Health Improvement Plan.

"We've got to start somewhere," Sumner said. "We've got to think outside of the box. I hope that with this meeting today and with this group we can start moving forward to start bringing some solutions to this huge problem we have in our county."

Treating inmates for mental health and substance abuse issues is costing taxpayers dearly, County Commissioner Bill Dozier said. Dozier, who is the commission liaison on the task force, said on any given day 200 to 250 people in the jail have mental health and substance abuse issues. He said the county not only pays for their jail expenses but medicines.

He said the purpose of Friday's meeting was for agencies to brainstorm possible solutions.

"We're looking for answers," he said. "Nobody has got the silver bullet that I know of, but this is going to be a good start to try and move in the right direction to address the problem of mental illness in our jail population. A lot of them are just repeat (offenders). They get out and they just come right back in."

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(c)2017 The News Herald (Panama City, Fla.)

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