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ONTARIO COUNTY, N.Y. — Ontario County sheriff’s deputies are taking a new approach to helping people experiencing a mental health crisis.
“A lot of people just need a little extra care. They just need someone to talk to, and it doesn’t necessarily have to be in a hospital, it can be in the home,” said Beverly Prince, a licensed clinical social worker at Clifton Springs Hospital.
Ontario County is participating in a pilot program to place iPads in sheriff’s vehicles so deputies can respond to mental health calls multiple times a day to conduct early assessments and, if a suspect consents, use the iPad to connect with a mental health professional at Clifton Springs Hospital via FaceTime or Zoom.
“Once people realize that when we come in the doors, we’re actually here to help, rather than just taking them out of the comfort of their home and taking them to the hospital, this is one tool in the toolbox that we have to say, ‘We don’t need to take you somewhere right now, but maybe we can get you on an iPad and talk to a mental health professional,'” said Sergeant Mark Taylor with the Ontario County Sheriff’s Office.
That expert can better determine if the person needs to be taken for treatment by a deputy sheriff or if counseling can be provided via iPad or outpatient treatment options and transportation can be arranged.
“We’ve seen a lot less people having to come to the hospital, a lot less news coverage. We know the community better and the police are able to get involved,” Prince said.
The sheriff’s department says the program has reduced the number of mental health arrests they have to make, freeing up valuable space in Clifton Springs’ psychiatric ward while continuing to provide help to those who need it, and that the program has played a key role in de-escalating situations, leading to fewer uses of force.
The Wayne County Sheriff’s Office is also participating in the pilot program, which has proven extremely helpful in rural counties because arrests for mental health reasons often mean trips of more than an hour to the hospital, taking away from deputies’ time to respond to other calls and requiring them to travel outside the county.
Of course, if officers arrive on scene and there is clearly a mental health crisis and the individual is threatening to harm themselves or others, they can make an arrest on mental health grounds and transport the individual directly to a hospital, or, if the individual doesn’t want to talk to a clinician on an iPad, they don’t have to, but depending on what happens next, they may be taken directly to a clinician.
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