Cayuga County mobile mental health crisis resources poised to expand

May 8—Mobile mental health crisis resources that help law enforcement and provide a direct line to assistance for community members are set to expand in Cayuga County.

The Cayuga County Legislature last month authorized a resolution allowing federal funds to be used for additional mobile mental health crisis services. The county will contribute $80,000 toward start-up costs for a day time mobile crisis team, while the city of Auburn will also be allocating $80,000 for the team's start-up cost. This team will be made up of staff from the Cayuga County Mental Health Center.

Both the Cayuga County Sheriff's Office and the Auburn Police Department had have access to a mobile crisis team through Liberty Resources Mobile Crisis Team, based in Syracuse, who assist with mental health situations from 5 p.m. to midnight.

Cayuga County is slated to pay its $80,000 through federal American Rescue Plan Act funds. The Legislature passed the resolution unanimously on April 24.

In an interview with The Citizen Wednesday, Cayuga County Sheriff Brian Schenck said that due to this expansion, employees with the mental health center will be able to go to mental health calls from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m, and the Liberty Resources team will still be available in the evening until midnight. He added that the sheriff's office will work with the county government to try to potentially get mobile crisis team members out from after midnight to 8 a.m., as there currently isn't funding available for that.

Schenck said he is glad Cayuga County and Auburn elected officials "understood the need" for this kind of team during the day. Officers often respond to incidents that turn out to be mental health situations rather than crime scenes.

"I'm very encouraged by the fact that we're going to have this additional resource and that they saw the urgency and the need to do this," he said. "It will allow us to have a mental health response to a mental health incident instead of a law enforcement response (for a situation) that really warrants specialized training and credentials to address a mental health crisis."

An additional aspect of this expansion is that these crisis teams are going to be available to the public, so "the public will be able to call a phone number and potentially have a mobile crisis response without having to have a law enforcement response, if that's appropriate," Schenck said. These services also span to those in crisis who are dealing with addiction.

The county Legislature's resolution also said the mental health center will designate two jobs to assist the day time team. One of those positions will be a staff social worker "to begin the operations of the day time mobile crisis team," the resolution continued, adding that the county director of community services "is authorized to fill the current staff social worker position." The center will also create an additional support position in the near future, the resolution said.

Lauren Walsh, the county's director of community services, which includes overseeing mental health and addiction services, told The Citizen that the mental health center is still developing a resolution to send to the Legislature on the approval of the additional support role. She said she is not yet sure when the day team will start going out to scenes, due to the center still needing to hire for those positions. The center is also talking to staff members about potentially being a part of the new team.

"We're still in the process of developing this program, all the details of this program, because it's new for us," Walsh said. "During this hiring process, we hope to have all those things ironed out so that when people are hired we can train them and then we can start this program as soon as we possibly can."

Walsh said there is plan for how this day team would operate.

"They work as a team, so they would be responding to crisis calls, as well as calls from law enforcement and it can be schools, it can be any other agencies in the county who have an individual in crisis or in distress. They would contact the mental health center, and then they would be evaluating those calls and would be going out mobile as a team, meeting people where they're at," she said. "If law enforcement goes on a call and they feel like it's a mental health call and they could use talking to mobile crisis, or a therapist, then the team will mobilize to where (the person having the crisis) is located."

Team members would then be assessing the situation, completing assessments with the individual in question, safety planning with them and making referrals for resources, among other duties, Walsh continued.

Having previously been a mobile crisis therapist with Liberty Resources, Walsh said she is excited to get started.

"I've seen how well it works, how you can see people right in the moment and then you can see them also get connected to services and then continue services," she said. "These might be people that wouldn't have normally got connected to a counselor or to other services. So it's really neat how you're meeting them in the community and able to make those referrals and make that connection happen and that linkage to support. It's really cool to see and I think this program could have a lot of benefit to this county during those day time hours, expanding people's access to it."

During an Auburn City Council meeting on April 21, City Manager Jeff Dygert said he and other city staff members met with Cayuga County representatives earlier that week to discuss allocating ARPA funds from both entities and "projects of potential mutual benefit," primarily focusing on the crisis intervention team.

Auburn Police Chief James Slayton said various scenarios officers deal with, including welfare check calls, overdose and suicide attempt calls "all could fit in that realm where we could use a mental health provider on that scene, rather than the police." There were 1,514 calls of that nature in 2020, he said, 1,681 in 2021 and 470 calls as of that date for 2022. The Liberty Resources team responded to 52 calls with APD in 2020, with 66 calls in 2021 and 11 through April 21 in 2022.

"When mobile crisis comes to those calls, once we deem the scene safe and they feel comfortable, they take it from there, our officers are relieved and goes on additional calls," Slayton said. "What happens now is two officers have to go up to the hospital and oftentimes we're there for hours waiting for the patient to be seen. Mobile crisis, what they do is take that over and Cayuga County Mental Health would do that during the day time hours for us."

Staff writer Kelly Rocheleau can be reached at (315) 282-2243 or kelly.rocheleau@lee.net. Follow him on Twitter @KellyRocheleau.

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