CHARLOTTE, N.C. (WBTV) – Mecklenburg County has launched the region’s first program designed to stop the dangerous revolving door for people with severe mental illness who are in and out of the jail system.
The Forensic Assertive Community Team, known as FACT, is the first program in the state that brings mental health care, housing help, peer support and legal oversight together under one coordinated team.
“Their job is to take care of the public safety, community safety. Our job is to help people with mental health and substance use issues,” said Kelly Crosbie, Director of the Division of Mental Health for DHHS. “It means that law enforcement knows, oh, I have the FACT team here. I can refer them to that team, right?”
The team includes a psychiatrist who will come in once or twice a week to prescribe medications, a registered nurse to administer medications, and peer support specialists.
Dr. Carolyn Lanier, a Charlotte native who leads the team, said she has seen changes in the homeless population and people suffering from mental illness over the years.
Derek Wilson oversees the forensic component of the Forensic Assertive Community Team, addressing the reasons behind criminal behavior. He said the county will have a team that can treat root causes of crime and mental illness simultaneously for the first time.
“So whenever we identify what that underlying problem is that’s bringing them into the justice system, we work with them to treat that,” Wilson said. “Then we can work with them on their mental illness and assist them in getting their needs met through medications, therapy, or anything related to their mental health. But that’s the great thing about FACT is that we have the ability to treat both. We’ve never had that before.”
Angel Nelson serves as the team’s peer support specialist, guiding participants through experiences she knows firsthand. Nelson said trauma at age nine forced her into survival mode, leading to theft, addiction and repeated jail time.
“Nine years old, I was like abducted, raped, and left for dead,” Nelson said.
She said she started stealing at age nine and went to jail for the first time at age 12 for stealing a lawnmower. Nelson said she began abusing drugs around age nine.
The turning point came when a judge gave her one choice: extensive treatment or a lifetime behind bars.
“It was that somebody else saw something in me that I didn’t know I had,” Nelson said. “The first time, I went to the store by myself and didn’t steal nothing. That was the most awesome feeling I had ever felt in my life. I get so emotional because I never knew I could do that.”
Nelson was diagnosed with anxiety and postpartum depression. She said counselors told her the stealing could have come from trying to take back what was taken from her.
“People don’t wake up each day and say, I want to go to jail,” Nelson said. “Just being without the things we need, like food, the necessities, I started shoplifting, to get what I need.”
Program provides accountability and support
Once someone is referred, the Forensic Assertive Community Team will vet them. If approved, leaders provide temporary housing and make sure participants attend appointments and take prescribed medication.
Wilson said most participants are not trying to harm anyone but are in difficult situations, trying to survive day to day.
The Forensic Assertive Community Team will start with 35 program participants by the end of this month.
Mecklenburg is one of four counties launching this pilot program. Each county received $636,000 from the state general assembly to help build mental health care.
The Forensic Assertive Community Team will also help participants find jobs, get emergency housing and eventually move into stable, permanent housing.
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