Travis County Commissioners Court
March 25, 2008
Item 11
Number 11 is to receive update on the meant health public defender's office phase one evaluation with staff response.
>> very briefly, we wanted to just present a brief update on the mental health public defender's office and to take any questions you might have on the evaluation done by the consultant earlier in the year. First of all, I want to introduce the mental health public defender and kimberly pierce who works in criminal justice planning and has been an administrator grant. A couple things before turk over to generalette, I want to address in text number 10 and 14 of the recommendations of the group. One of the things that I致e asked jeanette to do is to make a priority for her office to work with criminal justice planning to develop a business plan around the collection reporting and utilization of the data. Looking at the data by the group, we want to make sure a nup of issues are taken care of and we have a good baseline of data from which to do an evaluation. Those go to number 10 and 14.
>> somebody from the office called to ask some specific questions on this program . Thank godness we have it available to us. We were basically trying to look to see if we have something to come pair it to in this program comparetively. If we didn't have the program available what would the cost be on the taxpayers as opposed to having the program and not having to experience the costs per se. I知 still looking to getting the data. Folks ask, Commissioner you have to do this. What are we getting in return for what you are doing. Those are the kinds of questions I知 trying the put my arms around. I know it's early in the game. Thanks goodness we have this type program. At the end of day you need to still somewhere in some stage be able come pair apples to apples. That's what I知 looking forward to seeing. I think kimberly my office may have called to you and talked to you on that.
>> yesterday afternoon.
>> sorry, I didn't hear you.
>> I spoke with chris yesterday afternoon. That's what we are hoping the evaluation is going to be able to answer those questions for you. It's still early for us to be able to answer those questions.
>> thank you. Didn't mean to interrupt you, your movement. Thank you.
>> good morning.
>> good morning.
>> good morning.
>> I知 pleased to be here April 2 will be my first anniversary next week. I don't know if I will ever get to the stage she is at. I think you will have to bring me in on a wheelchair. I love my job and I知 proud of the program. A year ago I was next to kenny in a closet office, starting to hire staff and had my personal cell and laptop. At any rate, by may they moved me out to post road and hired a secretary and started hiring staff. So it's been a great year. We have a lot more to do. I don't think we got up and running until about August. We weren't fully staffed until November. We have handled about 292 legal cases to date. We're funded for 500, which I think is too many considering the high maintenance, perhaps I should say that, of our clients. They just take more time, are more time consuming than other clients I致e represented over the years. The social work stuff, that arm of our office during the time we've been up and running have referred 74 for housing, 7 for transportation, 93 for mental health services, 16 for sub stand abuse treatment, 33 for legal services, three for va benefits, 13 for i.d. Assistance. That means when someone is released from jail, some of these folks have no identification and don't know quite how to get to that point. They can't get a job, can't get an apartment without some sort of the identification. The social step helps with that. 21 referred for other kind of benefits, 23 education or employment 35 for other basic necessities. In addition we've done a series of c a trainings for the lawyers in courthouse, not all , a lot of other folks go to them, such as doctor susan stone, head of the mayor's mental health task force, did a one-hour lecture on different diagnosis. We have had jeff from the jail staff talk about how are identified as inmates in the jail. In February we had a suicide prevention seminar. We had 50-55 people there. This policy research council was from new york. They chose Austin and rochester new york as kind of pilot sites to do the suicide presense training. Our office sponsored that in February. We've done a lot of in house training which the report speaks to. And we are moving right along. The two projects I didn't anticipate when I began was representing project recovery folks. We don't --represent all of them because the program is funded for axis one and not all of the guys in the project have a mental illness. We represent most of them.
>> how many have been referred? Those that do have mental behavior problems, have they been referred to you? I知 quite sure even in the recovery type situation, looking at those persons in the community, I知 basically talking about referral, a person that may have mental challenges, is that something that is also looked into as far as referral?
>> I知 not sure I understand your question.
>> I知 saying persons that have mental challenges and that are in the community, an example, go ahead with your presentation. I値l come back to you with that.
>> the project recovery referrals come from the judge because she supervises and she will appoint us on the one she knows have an axis one diagnose united states. Most have dual diagnosis and have alcohol problem as well as mental illness.
>> that's what I was getting to. Go ahead. I知 kind of way ahead of the game.
>> okay. The oath --other portion I hadn't anticipated is the incompetence. Under the current assist tell when say a pointed lawyer has a client they think is mentally incompetent to stand trial, they ask for evaluation. Once they are found incompetent the judges transfer to our docket so we sort of monitor them. The social workers visit weekly. Some of those folks a couple weeks on med are going to be competent again and we can have them reevaluated and get them out of our jail. The spangenburg report talks about moving the docket to one court. I this think that is going to happen in early may and judge crane will see to that. I think that was a very good suggestion on behalf of the spangenburg folks.
>> I have one question. The concern raised when we were negotiating this program with the state was that if you create a special caseload every time a mental health client of ours shows up in court, everybody in there will know it's a mental health client. And so the question was whether that would be a hippa violation. The question is, what have we seen?
>> I think the judges are somewhat sensitive to that and have made an effort. One has called hers a support court rather than mental health. The other call it special reduction docket in in misdemeanor court. So they are somewhat sensitive to that issue. I haven't seen a problem with it.
>> okay.
>> I think it's a legitimate concern and something we should be sensitive to.
>> we try to do what we can to avoid that stigma.
>> yes.
>> and highlighting that this is a mental health docket.
>> yes, sir, I wasn't sure we could but I knew we would do what we could not to call these continues to the attention of the world. That would exacerbate an already bad situation if we aren't careful.
>> I agree.
>> any other questions.
>> ?
>> one more, judge.
>> okay.
>> what I was referring to, when they came and spoke with the Commissioners, one question I remember asked specifically then was the referral type concept. In other words, these persons going through the process that need to be looked at and made sent to your shop and other areas as far as relief is concerned, what I was trying to get to even then, and then now, is the community involvement as far as referral. In other words, you have a person that has a situation, has a problem, a lot of folks need support from that end to make sure that they get the proper setting to really deal with their situation as far as the legal end of that. So I知 just wondering, is that still is knew that is veil--available. That's what I知 trying to put my arm around.
>> yes, think the grant anticipated most of the cases coming through court administration. We get 40 percent from there. We get people off the street or calls from mothers who say my son is bi polar and I want to you help him.
>> maybe I wasn't specific enough, I was basically getting on that point just brought up, is the referral process. Is it still intact. Of course the answer is yes. That's what I was trying to get to, that answer, to that end.
>> yes, sir.
>> okey doke.
>> we do take those referrals. My staff, each of us has at least one community organization we're responsible to. One goes to brick by brick, one goes to maria conchela's program she is starting. Community organizations all over the county that we want to be responsive to and we want them to know we are here and here to serve them.
>> exactly. Okay. Thank you.
>> caseload target of 500, is that a static 500 or 500 a year?
>> 500 a year.
>> are we talking with the state and letting state reps know the target may be difficult to achieve?
>> I致e talked to jim at the task force about that. I think it is difficult to achieve and I think it is outside the standard national guidelines by aba and national public defender groups that evaluate and see a what they think is appropriate caseload. For misdemeanor mentally ill the maximum they say is 200 per lawyer. Of course I have a lot of administrative stuff to do in addition. But I think 500 was too large.
>> before we conclude, another question I remember I asked and I wanted you you guys to see if you would get involved, and that is public awareness of the program itself. What attempts have we made, what attempts are we making to let the public know, hey, here is a program, the purpose of the program, and here is how it works. What are we doing to that end?
>> I think being involved in the community groups I mentioned earlier, I was on fox news back in September. We have had a couple statesman's articles. I welcome speaking engagements any time.
>> let me suggest this.
>> yes, sir.
>> there's a local radio station called kez i. We get a lot of calls into that station. I would encourage you to get in touch with a person by the name of nelson lender because the calls come in frequent on these types of situations. I just think I may have mentioned that before, that the exposure needs to be, I think, made available to the public as far as being part of the program that we are promoting.
>> be happy to. I welcome it.
>> you welcome that?
>> yes, sir.
>> okay, thank you.
>> any other questions, comments? We're moving in the right direction, we think.
>> yes, sir, with your support.
>> all right, thank you very much.
>> thank you.
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Last Modified:
Wednesday, March 26, 2008 8:51 PM