There are currently no facilities in Jackson County that support acute stabilization or detox for those in need, but a solution may be in the works.

On Tuesday, Christine Daniel discussed the services Hendricks Behavioral Hospital could provide for Jackson County with the Justice Reinvestment Advisory Council at the Jackson-Jennings Community Corrections Work Release Center in Seymour.

Hendricks Behavioral, located in Plainfield, provides both inpatient and intensive outpatient programs for adults with mental health and chemical dependency disorders and inpatient and intensive outpatient programs for teens between 13 and 17 with mental health and dual diagnosis disorders.

Daniel, the director of business development for the hospital, spoke to the council about a relationship being established among Hendricks, the Jackson County Jail in Brownstown and the community corrections agency. She also detailed what a partnership between those organizations would involve.

Under the proposal, any person from Jackson County who is in the jail or work release center and is assessed to be experiencing a severe mental health crisis by staff can be referred to Hendricks for up to 10 days. While there, they will be stabilized and sent back to the appropriate facility for custody upon discharge.

The council raised questions on the referral process.

“A lot of jails don’t have 24-hour nursing available, so if you have somebody you think is behaving bizarrely, homicidal or suicidal, they’re at risk to themselves or others or detoxing, send in an incident report,” Daniel said.

“We’ve also taken typed-up paragraphs just describing the behavior,” she said. “We’ve had people describe people responding to internal stimuli, such as banging their head against the wall, saying they’re going to hang themselves with a sheet, cutting themselves with a sharp object. Any descriptive you have, we’re able to take. The most important part is (providing) a call-back number.”

On Jan. 11, Ben Beatty, recovery outreach coordinator for Centerstone; J.L. Brewer, director of Jackson-Jennings Community Corrections; and Jackson County Jail Commander Chris Everhart met with leadership at Hendricks Behavioral Hospital to tour the facility and discuss the potential partnership.

“We do not provide this level of care at Centerstone or anywhere else in this community,” Beatty said. “We have to work together as a community to better understand the behavioral health continuum and the appropriate levels of care for our community members based on the symptoms they are individually experiencing.”

Concerns also were raised by the council regarding the logistics of transportation and coordination.

Daniel said a judge’s order must be attained and a discharge plan must be in place for a person to be submitted to Hendricks through the proposed partnership.

She also said Hendricks employs discharge planners and provides transportation for people back to their appropriate facility. Patients incoming from Schneck Medical Center in Seymour arrive via ambulance, while others are coordinated through 211, case managers and police. MiraMed, a health care debt collection agency, charges the psychiatric facility when a patient is transported via ambulance.

The Jackson County Jail currently is transporting existing methadone patients to Seymour Comprehensive Treatment Center on a daily basis to receive their medication for opioid use disorder. No other county jail in the state provides this service.

Hendricks Behavioral Hospital accepts most commercial insurance, including managed Medicaid and Medicare plans, Healthy Indiana Plans, Medicaid for patients under 21, Medicare and TRICARE.

A state law enacted in 2021 requires each county in the state to establish a Justice Reinvestment Advisory Council.

Local JRACs are required to promote the use of evidence-based and best practices in the areas of community-based sentencing alternatives and recidivism reduction; review, evaluate and make recommendations about local practices (community-based corrections and jail overcrowding); compile reports as directed by the state JRAC; and communicate with the state JRAC to establish and implement best practices and to ensure consistent collection and reporting of data.

If you are experiencing a medical emergency, call 911. If you are experiencing thoughts of suicide or are in crisis, call 988.