Byram praises CCS for boots on the ground
By Terry Murry on Monday, February 28th, 2022 in Columbia Basin News More Top Stories
PENDLETON – Pendleton Police Chief Chuck Byram says he’s noticed a big change since Umatilla County switched mental health and substance abuse services to Community Counseling Solutions. Previously, he said, a person undergoing a crisis had to either be taken to the jail or to the hospital before services kicked into action.
“What the new contract with CCS has provided us, and especially their leadership, is their willingness is to meet us halfway and come out to the field with us so that they can interact when that person is actually in the field going through a crisis,” he said. “Before, we had to go on our own, get these people either willingly or unwillingly go to the hospital, put them in a room and have the mental health providers come up to the hospital in a more controlled environment.”
Byram said that CCS makes things much better, but there’s still a major area dealing with people in crisis that is missing.
“In this day and age when law enforcement is being demonized for interacting with the mentally ill component of our society, who else do we have to interact with these people,” he wondered. “Where are the other resources? Where’s the stand-alone facility? None of that is existing. Yet, when we go and we deal with them when they’re having a crisis and things don’t go as the textbook says it should go, then we’re demonized. I think CCS is providing legitimacy and validity to the things we’re seeing out there. It doesn’t always go as the textbooks said it should go.”
Having mental health experts in the field gives credence to law enforcement, Byram said.
“It strengthens our partnership with the mental health community so that they listen to what we already know,” he said. “We need more stand-alone facilities.”
