The Hays County Commissioners Court approved two items related to the Mental Health Court’s Assisted Outpatient Treatment program at the regularly scheduled meeting today. The court unanimously approved a contract with Philip Carolina to provide Disability and Benefit Navigation services. According to the agenda, Carolina will utilize a coordination/consultative approach to assist in acquiring benefits such as title benefits from Social Security, Medicaid, insurance and food stamps, among others. Carolina will also assist with significant housing needs, either urgent or emergent, that is not part of routine case management needs. The court also unanimously approved Memorandum of Understandings with Philip Carolina, Texas Oaks Psychiatric Hospital, Austin Oaks Hospital, Deblin Health Concepts & Associates and Evoke Wellness for contracts that had already been approved but now need to be acknowledged as MOUs. The agenda gave background information on the need for MOUs, On Jan. 21, the court approved the execution of contracts with Texas Oaks Psychiatric Hospital, Austin Oaks Hospital, Deblin Health Concepts & Associates and Evoke Wellness, pursuant to the Assisted Outpatient Treatment Program approved through the awarded grant from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration on Oct. 1, 2024. SAMHSA is requesting a Memorandum of Understanding to be executed instead of a contract. Kaimi Mattila, Mental Health Court administrator, said Disability and Benefit Navigation services are greatly needed for the court’s participants. “We've seen that we have court participants that have very intense needs, that need a lot of support navigating those systems,” she said. “This contract will allow him to work with our court participants to do that and help them obtain those benefits that they need.” Hays County Commissioner Pct. 2 Michelle Cohen was in support of the item as it represented “another layer of resources for the court.” She added that she’s heard these programs can be difficult to navigate, so this service will be useful. Mattila explained the role of each of the contracted providers for the Hays County Assisted Outpatient Treatment Program. “Austin Oaks provides IOP, which stands for Intensive Outpatient Programming and Partial Hospitalization Programming. So PHP and IOP programming, those are outpatient services, intensive services, instead of a residential stay,” Mattila said. “This contract would allow those individuals in the AOT program to engage in those services, if they need them. We will also have a contract with Deblin Health Concepts, which provides psychiatry case management and counseling. We already have a contract with them for Mental Health Court, so this would allow us to use those same services for this assisted outpatient treatment program. There's also a contract with Evoke Wellness. So this will be for IOP services for those that have co-occurring mental health and substance use disorders, and again, with Philip specifically for benefits navigation.” Mattila added that each of the providers have different services that can be pieced together for a custom approach. “We piece together a treatment plan dependent on their needs, and their treatment plan could include some of these services or it could include working with other providers that our community based if they have health insurance, for example,” she said. “We're always evaluating the effectiveness and also the necessity of each and every one of our contracts for both Mental Health Court and AOT.” Stephanie Hunt, Hays County purchasing agent, clarified that three of the four providers, excluding Philip Carolina that was approved on the same day, had already been brought to court for the execution of contracts. She added that the granting agency was requesting MOUs in lieu of contracts. Hays County Commissioner Pct. 1 Debbie Gonzales Ingalsbe said she wanted to thank Matilla and Judge Elaine Brown for all the hard work they’ve been doing. “We've been needing these specialized services for quite some time,” Ingalsbe said, adding that she wanted to highlight some of the functions of the court. “After a comprehensive treatment plan is created, they have the psychiatry that's available, counseling and the individual case management services, which is extremely important. So for those that meet that criteria, they'll be able to get those services.” Hays County Commissioner Pct. 4 Walt Smith said in the initial creation of the Behavioral Analysis Team, there were conversations about the need for substance abuse services and how it “intersects with the need in the Mental Health Court.” “You really have two completely separate issues, but the interaction of them dictate what happens in your court,” he said. “I'm glad to see that y'all are moving forward on more of this.” Learn more about the court at this link hayscountytx.gov/mental-health-court.
