10 Feb Grant from Methodist Health Care Ministries to fund a Qualified Mental Health Professional
Posted at 07:50h
in Community
In January of 2023 72 residents, leaders, and people with lived experience joined together to experience a Sequential Intercept Modeling (SIM) exercise facilitated by Health and Human Services. The SIM exercise maps out how individuals in our county who are experiencing mental health or substance use issues are interacting with our Judicial System. Starting with when the call comes in to dispatch, all the way through reentry services if they are coming out of the jail.
The top priorities were:
1. Establish a Behavioral Health Center
2. Provide better mental health services in the Jail
3. Strengthen Co-responder crisis response for mental health calls
4. Educate and strengthen prevention for mental health and substance use.
We started working on #2 right away. We were lucky enough to have a practicum student from UTSA Graduate Social Work who had previously worked for the Border Region Local Mental Health Authority Webb County and Laredo, primarily working with folks released from jail. We created an MOU with Kendall County Sheriff’s office and Joyce started this program in the Jail as a practicum student.
We were able to get a $150,000 grant from Methodist Health Care Ministries to fund a Qualified Mental Health Professional – Community Service worker (QMHP-CS) . We were lucky enough to be able to hire Joyce back on a part time basis to continue this program in the jail. Joyce will now be working in the Kendall County Jail, to ensure that inmates from Kendall County who are in need of mental health services are actively being connected with the resources available to them while in jail, and when they are released.
Joyce’s position is connecting some of inmates with mental health care for the very first time in their lives. Our ultimate goals are to reduce recidivism rates and help produce productive members of society.
We are beyond happy to have Joyce working with us again, and being a shining example how HCFS is helping solve problems with individuals in crisis and creating lasting change for those individuals.