Tropical Texas Behavioral Health-Hidalgo County Justice and Mental Health Collaboration Program

Tropical Texas Behavioral Health (TTBH) is proposing to develop the TTBH Mental Health Diversion Court program in collaboration with the Hidalgo County and Cameron and Willacy County Community Supervision and Corrections Department. Our service area will be in the counties of Hidalgo and Cameron Counties. The priority areas for this program are designated High-Poverty Areas or Persistent-Poverty Counties. A review of the U.S. Census Bureau (V2023), Population by Poverty Status by Counties indicated that Hidalgo and Cameron Counties have a poverty rate of 27.4% and 22.6%, which is two times higher than Texas at 14.0%. The area is predominantly Hispanic population at 92.5% and 89.8%, respectively.

The proposed project will be a court-ordered outpatient mental health treatment for individuals on probation with serious mental health disorders or co-occurring mental health and substance use disorders living in the community, who have not successfully engaged in treatment resulting in repeated inpatient admissions, arrests, homelessness, or other difficulties fully integrating into the community. This project offers the opportunity to aid those individuals with the greatest needs in our community by promoting effective strategies to expand the use of mental health courts and related services, propose interventions that have been shown by empirical evidence to reduce recidivism, and increase participation in treatment.

TTBH proposes to serve 80 unduplicated individuals over the three-year period. TTBH and the Cameron County and Hidalgo County courts have an established relationship and aim to create a formal program with evidence-based practices to strengthen and enhance the benefits of the collaboration. The treatment team will be comprised of one case manager per county for a total of two, and one probation officer per county for a total of two. The team will implement specialized caseloads as a tool for reducing recidivism among individuals who have mental health and co-occurring substance use disorders. There are no planned conference activities for the recommended award.