Tyngsboro

BILLERICA — The Middlesex County Restoration Center, a proposed crisis-diversion facility, is closer to being realized, said members of the commission who have been working since 2018 to develop the innovative mental and behavioral health intervention project.

Town Manager John Curran hosted Monday’s roundtable, chaired by Middlesex Sheriff Peter Koutoujian, at which he and U.S. Rep. Lori Trahan (MA-3), along with other commission representatives and partners, announced a $1.65 million federal investment for the center. This money is in addition to the $5 million in American Rescue Act Plan money that the commission was awarded earlier this year.

The funds will be used to open a mental and behavioral health center next year that will offer wrap-around clinician-based services in lieu of traditional arrest-and-incarceration policing strategies. Although the Middlesex Sheriff’s Office has been the driving force behind the project, the facility will be run by clinicians and medical professionals. No location has been selected, but Greater Lowell, MetroWest and the southeastern part of Middlesex County are under consideration.

Calling the Restoration Center a “model for crisis diversion,” Koutoujian bluntly offered that “we can’t arrest our way out of this problem. For far too long, law enforcement has had to shoulder the burden of the mental health crisis response in the commonwealth. You shouldn’t have to come to jail to get good treatment; you should be able to get it out in the community.”

He referenced statistics that show that an increasing number of individuals are entering the criminal justice system with unaddressed and undiagnosed behavioral health issues.

“Jails have become our de facto mental health treatment facilities,” Koutoujian said. “Rikers Island in New York, Los Angeles County jail, and Cook County jail in Chicago, are the largest public health providers in the entire country.”

The mental health crisis is increasing in the commonwealth, despite world-class area hospitals said Koutoujian, a problem that has been exacerbated by the COVID pandemic and an ongoing substance abuse epidemic.

“In January 2019, 11% of my incarcerated population had a diagnosed mental health condition,” Koutoujian said. “Today that number is 44%. In fact, 40% of those who come into the Middlesex Jail and House of Correction have to be medically detoxed. The acuity level of the individuals we encounter in our care is actually much higher.”

Trahan secured nearly $8 million in federal money for Third District projects, including the Restoration Center, part of the comprehensive government funding package signed into law by President Joe Biden in March.

She spoke to the how the Center will reimagine modern policing and the community response to mental health and substance abuse issues, joking that Koutoujian buttonholed her with the idea for the center right after she entered Congress.

“The sheriff, co-chair Danna Mauch (President and CEO of the Massachusetts Association for Mental Health), and I (along with state Sen. Cindy Friedman, D-Arlington) worked hard to secure this community project funding,” Trahan said, “because we recognize that now, more than ever, we need to invest in mental health and substance abuse treatment and prevention programs in our communities.”

Law enforcement was represented at the panel by Billerica Police Chief Roy Frost and Chelmsford Lt. Todd Ahern, both of whom have been at the forefront of reinventing the community policing model, effectively anticipating the need for the kind of behavioral services the Center will provide.

Frost was instrumental in establishing the Police Mental Health Collaborative and Jail Diversion program for Billerica that recognized the significant increase in mental health issues, and diverted appropriate cases to mental health services rather than the enforcement side of the justice system.

Ahern serves as the Chelmsford police department’s Wellness, Mental Health and Outreach Program officer.

Billerica and Chelmsford are also part of a regional Front-Line Initiative, a regional police mental-health collaborative with the police departments of Tewksbury, Dracut and Tyngsboro.

Frost, who took over the top job in December 2021, called mental health a unique form of illness that requires unique policing tactics such as de-escalation and stabilization to keep both the community members and the officers safe.

“Many times, these crimes that happen, that we respond to, they’re the result of a mental health or substance abuse crisis,” Frost said. “We know that unless we address the bigger issue of whatever is going wrong with this person, that it’s going to continue. To have a place like the Restoration Center focusing on that issue of mental health will be very helpful to Billerica and other communities.”

Ahern called the center part of an evolutionary process over the last ten years in trying to respond to mental health challenges in modern policing.

“We’re going in the right direction,” Ahern said. “The center is the big missing piece, and it’s going to make our job a lot easier.”

There are state-level plans to create crisis intervention centers to build out on the restoration center model, Koutoujian said.

“These are smaller models, without all the resources our pilot will bring, but we’re building up a network of mental health care.”

Eventually, the goal is to reorient behavioral health care away from the criminal justice system of incarceration or by depending on hospital emergency room care, which state Rep. and commission member Ken Gordon, of Bedford, said is inefficient and expensive.

“This is a real win-win,” Gordon said. “It’s a way to address problems of people who are interacting with the police or health care system because of untreated mental illness or substance abuse issues.”

Koutoujian agreed saying that, “This is the future not just in policing, but also in behavioral health.”