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Tropical Texas Behavioral Health announced its opening a new Diversion Center to help provide mental health evaluations and services for people brought in by law enforcement or other entities around the clock.

With funding from the Texas Health and Human Services Commission and support from Hidalgo County District Attorney Toribio “Terry” Palacios, Hidalgo County Sheriff J.E. “Eddie” Guerra and Edinburg Police Chief Jaime Ayala, the new center will serve as an alternative location for law enforcement to place adults with mental illness or co-occurring disorders who are at risk of arrest yet don’t meet the criteria for acute mental health crisis.

According to Tropical Texas Behavioral Health CEO Terry Crocker, law enforcement played a role in the development as it would help them in their day-to-day work.

“Having them be a part of it was a comfort to us knowing it was going to make a difference and be a resource for our law enforcement partners and make an impact on law enforcement agencies’ ability to do their jobs,” Crocker said.

Crocker added that although they anticipate law enforcement to be those who take advantage of the Diversion Center the most, emergency medical technicians can also place someone who may be experiencing a mental health crisis at the center.

To do so, a police officer or EMT can call ahead and an expert will conduct a screening, which can be done over the phone, to determine if a person is appropriate to go to the Diversion Center.

A stay at the center isn’t supposed to be long-term but only 23 hours in length, according to Crocker.

Once at the center, employees there will triage a patient to determine what sort of emergency they’re experiencing. Sometimes a patient will need further care from Tropical Texas Behavioral Health, which employees there can immediately set up, but there may be some instances of patients needing higher levels of care and being sent to an inpatient psychiatric facility.

“We will really depend on our partners to call us and let us know … and we’ll talk to them about it, make that determination over the phone, give them a thumbs up, thumbs down, bring them over, get some basic information,” Crocker said. “That officer or whoever is bringing them are targets for them to be there no longer than 15 minutes tops and we take over the situation and for them to get back to the job they were on.”

Although this particular Diversion Center will be utilized by Hidalgo County, there are plans to branch out.

Crocker said that Tropical Texas Behavioral Health recently closed on a property in Harlingen and Cameron County Judge Eddie Treviño Jr. expressed interest in opening a Diversion Center there.

Following approval from their board, Tropical Texas Behavioral Health is in the process of beginning construction activities there, according to Crocker.

Speaking to Palacios, the district attorney expressed gratitude to Tropical Texas Behavioral Health for their efforts in helping alleviate the workload that law enforcement experience.

“Thank God for Tropical Texas … we needed a center where, you know, as a magistrate for Edinburg many times we would have kids or people that have mental health issues that their families couldn’t control,” Palacios said.

He said these individuals would be sometimes arrested for criminal mischief or criminal trespass and these families needed help with their loved ones.

With the Diversion Center, people on the verge of arrest can instead receive the help they need for their mental health issues, albeit only if they’re not violent offenders, according to Palacios.

He added that it’s currently a 12-bed facility and a pilot program. Palacios hopes they’ll eventually receive more funding in order to expand after they see how successful this program is.

Palacios also shared an anecdote of a family friend whose daughter suffers from mental health issues and has a history of being in and out of mental health hospitals.

“She was being a little combative, they couldn’t handle her … and they didn’t want to (have) her arrested,” Palacios said. “They couldn’t keep her in the house because her kids were there and she was being a little aggressive.”

Had the Diversion Center existed then, police could’ve picked her up and taken her there to get her the help she needed.

Palacios feels hopeful regarding the Diversion Center pilot program and its efforts in helping law enforcement and the community.

“Our community is so big now, it’s something we needed ten years ago,” Palacios said. “We got it now and we’re going to go forward with it and hopefully we’re going to expand it to all our agencies.”

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