Deputy Austin Gay, the go-to for Precinct 1 tour guide, shared his day with me. He has a long career of service ranging from Hostage Negotiation to Crisis Intervention to Mental Health.

During the day, Deputy Austin Gay (soon to become a Sergeant and a supervisor) shared his personal vision for growing their back-office operations and pro-active county-wide projects of prevention and intervention.

The key, he said, is listening thoroughly.  Then to guide, educate, protect and redirect.

(It sounds a lot like parenting, doesn’t it? We show respect to our kids’ perspective by listening, asking questions, letting them get their words out first. This, of course, takes patience and a kind heart.)

This Mental Health CIT unit is one of only two, Montgomery County Pct. 1 Mental Health and Crisis Intervention unit and Conroe Police Department’s CERT Team, in our geographically-large county. It has the top-down mission to purposefully support mental health as the first consideration when the heat is on.

He went out of his way to show me the eye-popping quantity of square miles the units cover 24/7.   I also got a first-class tour of agencies and law enforcement colleagues. I asked them the same thing, “What do you want us to know? ”

At the top of their list is to do all they can to calm those caught up in crisis situations.  More talking, avoiding handcuffs. (As a mom, I would say more “easy way”, much less “hard way”.)

This listening and building relationships takes more time. It takes patience. Slowing down someone’s knee-jerk reactions can make time on your side. (As a mom, this sure rings true in my house.)

When he encounters those headed toward trouble and/or voicing suicidal thoughts, he likes to ask “what happened today that is different from yesterday?”, trying to determine the antecedent causing the behavior or action(s) taken.  The team shares “if you are depressed, you are not crazy”.

I began learning more about Sheriffs and Constables. Our county has one elected Sheriff and five elected Constables in five respective precincts. (Other agencies are State Troopers, DPS, Fire, EMS, and Justices of the Peace (JPs).   Precinct 1 covers Lake Conroe, Mental Health, Canine, Schools and other operations.

Our county recently was awarded ARPA funds via the CARES Act for 10 more mental health crisis professionals: 3 supervisors and 7 deputies. This grows the team from 14 to soon 24.

Our local mental health authority (historically labeled LIDDA) is Tri County Behavioral Health Care (TCBHC). It is a long-standing, grandfathered-in non-profit covering Montgomery, Walker and Liberty Counties, and provides resources for the under-and un-insured. They do much more. They have an in-patient and an out-patient team. Different buildings, similar mission. There are laws to constrain media coverage of law enforcement (funny to think they consider me media), so this photo with Beth D., (Interim) Program Director, Crises Services, TCBHC, is the only one representing many conversations of the day.

You have seen the ambulances of Montgomery County Hospital District (MCHD). They also operate EMS Districts, District Chiefs, and 24/7 EMS staff.

Within the Emergency Services Department (ESD): Fire-coordinated responses, 911 Dispatcher offices, and numerous stations (shared agencies or solo). (I have been studying this several years, and I still get dizzy.)

We then started talking about our young people of neurodiversity. I asked him what he would share with you all.   Here are some recommendations:

1. Don’t let your child control the family.
2. Parents should teach real consequences for the real world. Natural consequences.
3. Teach your children right v. wrong.
4. Have boundaries and rules.
5. Discipline your child (time outs, groundings, etc.)
6. Listen to your kids. If they talk about a teenage breakup, it’s just as real and powerful as an adult divorce.
7. Be aware of the pain of the moment. Youth don’t always have the big picture of life’s ups and downs as adults have grown to know.
8. If your family member is going to drive (as in launching for independence), have a family determination of the possible consequences, financial liabilities, physical risks, possible damages. This would apply if the young or elderly had their version of neurodiversity / reduced awareness of natural consequences. There is a potential of a felony or death, a lifetime of care, resultant guilt and other psychological issues. Determine that your family member is emotionally ready and is capable of remorse.
9. A “crash” has contributing factors. It’s not an “accident”.
10. If a young person is neurotypical, the age of culpability is usually 10 years old. (If there is developmental delay and/or issues of neurodiversity, this will be a different number, to be determined by the court and experts.)

We also talked about Emergency Detention Orders (EDOs). This became a complicated conversation. If you have a first responder in your life, ask them.

I hope to soon spend another day with this team. Lots of bridges to keep building. Want to help?