EVANSVILLE, Ind. (WFIE) – Local leaders gathered tonight to discuss mental health, and how to help those in crisis.
Evansville city leaders held a community forum tonight focused on connecting people with important resources, and keeping those in crisis out of jail.
“All of us need help. We all need partners, the people that we are helping, need help and the people that are helpers, need help. Nobody can do it alone,” EPD Chief Phillip Smith says.
Officials with Building Respect & Integrity in Diverse Greater Evansville, or BRIDGE, along with other partnerships invited the public to attend a mental health and jail diversion forum.
It was a packed room at the Evansville Public Library, where people heard from local leaders and law enforcement officers on mental health and how people who are experiencing a mental illness crisis had been diverted from jail and connected to needed services.
One BRIDGE official spoke on the importance of recognizing a crisis and mitigating it.
“It’s so important for anyone who has dealt with mental illness or had family family members in a mental health crisis,” Lora Stephens says. “There’s nothing worse than going through that and then interacting with the system that isn’t set up to support you or a system that pulls you off to jail when you really need is mental health services is just the worst thing for you at that time so really understanding what is happening and understanding the strong jail diversion programs that our community already has is so important, and then understanding how we can continue to strengthen those systems for the benefit of everyone in Evansville community.”
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