Williamson County adds more mental health resources, including hotline for students
Williamson County's mental health crisis team has a new hotline number for students. The hotline is one of the ways the county and its partners are reaching out to help people with mental issues this year, officials said.
Students in Williamson County school districts can call the hotline at 1-800-841-1255 that is answered 24 hours a day if they are thinking about harming themselves or others. The hotline program began on Jan. 1. Members of the county's crisis mobile outreach team answer the calls.
Also, a local psychiatric hospital is expanding the number of beds it has for children, the sheriff's office is adding a physician's assistant to help with mental health issues at the county jail and the local health authority is opening a respite center to help youths with issues including substance abuse.
The county's mental health task force has been meeting in the past year with area hospitals, the sheriff's office and Bluebonnet Trails, the local mental health authority, to discuss mental health issues in the county, Commissioner Valerie Covey said at the Commissioners Court on Tuesday.
One of the goals, she said, has been to help keep youths and adults with mental health issues out of detention and jail facilities.
"We have tried to put together several programs to address those problems," said Covey.
Commissioner Russ Boles said the hotline is needed.
"I ask the doctors that I know and they tell me about mental health issues among the youth," said Boles. "They said they get calls from parents saying 'My kid is trying to kill themselves,' said they (the doctors) often don't have a lot of time to talk."
Another program to help youths with mental health and substance abuse issues will start in late March.
A 16-bed youth respite facility run by Bluebonnet Trails will provide care up to 30 days and is scheduled to open on March 23 at 1009 N. Georgetown St. in Round Rock. It will include eight bedrooms, 5,000 square feet of classrooms, 3,500 square feet for medical care and family meeting spaces, and a playground, said Andrea Richardson, the executive director of Bluebonnet Trails.
Rock Springs, a psychiatric hospital, is also adding 24 beds for children at its Georgetown location. The beds will be available by Dec. 25.
Other resources for adults or children with mental health issues in the county also have started or will begin in February or March.
Since Nov. 15, people who call 911 in Williamson County needing mental health help can be switched immediately to talk a mental health professional 24 hours a day under a new program Bluebonnet Trails started.
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A drop-off center for sheriff's deputies to leave people with mental health issues instead of taking them to jail is expected to open on March 17 at a building being renovated at San Gabriel Park in Georgetown. Bluebonnet Trails is running the center.
"The 23-hour observation program provides psychiatric care and linkage to the most appropriate level of care – along with a safe transition to that level of care," said a presentation that Richardson made to the Commissioners Court on Tuesday.
Williamson County sheriff's Chief Deputy Ken Evans praised the idea for a drop-off center on Tuesday.
"I have been in law enforcement for 33 years and have never seen this type of resource," he told the commissioners. "This will help take the pressure off our deputies on the street thinking, "I gotta take this guy to the emergency room.'"
People being booked into the Williamson County Jail will also get more help with mental health issues starting in February when a new physician's assistant is expected to start helping with mental health assessments.
Evans said the assistant will help other employees at the jail who do the required assessments but have been overwhelmed. The sheriff's office is working on improving its approach to mental health in jail, he said.
Staff have already reduced by two-thirds their use of a restraint chair to control inmates, said Evans. "We just can't throw people in the restraint chair because they hit our hot button," he said. "We have to do a better job of being understanding and empathetic."
The county was sued twice in 2020 over the use of the restraint chair on inmates. The county also paid $1.6 million in 2021 to settle a lawsuit in the 2018 death of a mentally ill jail inmate in which the chair was used.
READ: Woman suing Williamson County saying jail restraints led to fractures
Starting this month, Bluebonnet Trails has also added a jail-based care coordinator and a court-based coordinator to help link inmates and people involved in court cases to medical, social and psychiatric care in the community and to reduce time between bookings and court hearings.
This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Williamson County adds more mental health resources
