WADESBORO — Anson County Sheriff’s Office has, with the help of the Sandhills Center, begun the process of instituting mental health programs for inmates at the Anson County Jail.
“Mental health is a problem, not only on our streets but also in our jail,” said Anson County Sheriff Landric Reid. Reid hopes to have the program in place by the end of 2020.
Kaye Ratliff, a former social worker, worked with Reid, Jail Administrator Captain Freddie Paxton, and the Sandhills Center CEO Victoria Whitt to help facilitate the programs.
The Sandhills Center is a local Management Entity-Managed Care Organization that provides mental health, substance abuse, and I/DD services to nine counties in central North Carolina.
“Sandhills Center has always been concerned about the mentally ill in the jail,” said Ratliff. “We’ve long had, in Anson County, a close association between mental health services and the law enforcement community.”
Ratliff was the director at the local Sandhills Center unit. Her staff would go into the jail once a week to screen inmates that officials were concerned about and make suggestions for their care. She retired at the end of 2006 but continued to perform consulting services until 2016.
Since Ratliff’s retirement, Paxton has continued to identify inmates who needed services and transport them to Daymark, which is Anson County’s primary outpatient care provider.
“That’s fine,” Ratliff said of this practice, “except you have to take the inmate out of the unit and it ties up the officer involved in transporting them to the service provider.”
To help solve this problem, Ratliff began talking with Whitt to see if there were any programs available at Sandhills Center to help instate mental health services at the jail.
A program was available and Sandhills Center will be providing a therapist to come in and talk to any inmate that needs help at no cost to the county.
“My goal is that when people come in the jail and have mental health issues we have someone for them to reach out to,” Reid said.
In addition to in-person visits, Paxton and Reid are in talks with Dr. Deron Coy of Correctional Behavioral Center in Durham about providing telepsychiatry to their inmates. They have started going forward with setting up monitors in the Jail.
“Right now, with the COVID-19 you want to do as little face-to-face interaction as you can,” explained Ratliff. “Telemedicine is becoming quite a thing so we want to get it into the jail.”
“We have so many people out there who are repeat offenders and part of that reason is mental health,” said Reid. “What we help to accomplish through these programs is to help those who are not getting help from the outside of the jail.”
Inmates will be evaluated by jail officials once they are admitted at the jail. Access to therapy and telepsychiatry sessions will be provided to any inmate who needs it.
“We will monitor different people in the jail,” said Reid. “If we think they have a problem, we’ll get them to talk to someone.”
Ratliff said she is excited to see this implemented.
“It will be a real boon to law enforcement here,” she said.
