Augusta, GA (WRDW/WAGT) – First confirmed report of a mental health initiative in Richmond County.
Local leaders have joined a national program to look at ways to keep people suffering from mental health problems out of prison.
District 1 Commissioner Jordan Johnson has spearheaded the initiative since the City of Augusta passed a resolution to become a Stepping Up City in 2021.
Johnson says he sees mental health impacting families firsthand and wants everyone in Richmond County to have access to mental health resources. It’s a collaborative effort.
“Our government departments and non-profit departments have worked together to find ways to make services more accessible to people,” he said.
To solve an issue affecting thousands of families in Richmond County.
“Mental health is an issue that affects our entire population, not just the homeless population,” he said.
In 2021, Johnson has pushed Augusta to become a step-up city.
The Stepping Up Initiative is a national organization to reduce the number of people sent to prison for mental health problems.
“I think the problem is that we’re not making efforts to address mental health holistically in our community,” he said.
This newly released report is called the Sequential Intercept Map. by the University of Georgia Carl his Vinson Institute of Public Administration to demonstrate how behavioral health needs in communities collide with the criminal justice system in collaboration with local law enforcement, hospitals, prisons and courts. Completed.
This is a map of Richmond County.
This report shows the resource gaps in Richmond County and explains how to fill them. The report’s top priorities are to increase the number of clinicians by two to her and to create psychiatric inpatient care. Local hospitals don’t have it.
“People need help. Not cells,” he said.
According to the report, only 48 of the 546 sheriff’s deputies at the Richmond County Sheriff’s Office have crisis intervention training.
Full report:
The I-TEAM indicated a lack of funding for the crisis intervention team’s cit program.
“I think there are a lot of opportunities outside of the general budget that we can take advantage of. Please fund it through the federal and state governments,” he said.
Johnson said the goal is to create a task force to help address growing mental health concerns within the county.
“When we’re talking about building Augusta, we can’t leave behind people who can’t speak for themselves,” Johnson said. “I hope this effort speaks for itself.”
Like the Homelessness Taskforce, the Mental Health Task Force works in the same way. Another focus of the report was to provide citations and tickets rather than arresting people.
If arrested, they want extensive mental health screening in prison.
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