In partnership with
Weekly roundup
This Week in Behavioral Health and Jail Diversion
This week, communities and lawmakers are rethinking who responds when a crisis isn't a crime, from rural Iowa sheriffs telling Sen. Grassley their jails have become de facto mental health facilities, to Baltimore proposing a new Department of Neighborhood Safety to take 22,000 nonviolent 911 calls off police plates, to Redwood City weighing a second crisis clinician as its lone responder nears 1,500 calls. Meanwhile, Carteret County is doubling down on jail diversion with two new recovery contracts, even as California's SB 1373 threatens to add court hurdles that could slow diversion access for the very people these programs are built to serve.
New Leadership
👮Behavioral Health Intervention
Central Iowa law enforcement leaders used a roundtable with Sen. Chuck Grassley to detail how their departments are absorbing mental health crisis response, grant-writing burdens, and juvenile placement gaps with minimal outside resources.
Mayor Brandon Scott and Council President Zeke Cohen proposed a Department of Neighborhood Safety that would send trained civilian responders — not police — to roughly 22,000 nonviolent calls a year, including welfare checks and homelessness-related incidents.
Sponsored by:
If you're running behavioral health, law enforcement, EMS, or social services, you already know the nightmare: agencies using different systems, data stuck in silos, and vulnerable people falling through the cracks because the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing. Before you resign yourself to another round of phone tag and missed referrals, just know there's a far better (and simpler) way: Julota.
This cloud-based community health platform connects your entire care ecosystem, paramedics, hospitals, mental health clinicians, law enforcement, social workers — into one secure, HIPAA-compliant hub. Get everyone on the same page and before you know it, you'll actually be delivering the right care, to the right person, at the right time.
Request a demo right here. It's purpose-built for communities like yours, wildly effective, and already trusted by programs in over 25 states
Program Upgrade
The Carteret County Board of Commissioners approved agreements with two new organizations, Loaves and Fishes, Inc. (serving adult men) and The Miriam, Inc. (serving adult women), to provide jail diversion recovery housing, education, and coping-skills services for people with alcohol and substance use disorders.
The county will compensate the facilities at $35 per participant per day, capped at $76,650 annually per contract, on top of its existing contract with Southeastern Integrated Care, a Morehead City-based jail diversion provider.
Commissioner Chuck Shinn tried to table the vote, wanting more time to evaluate the existing Southeastern Integrated Care contract, which he called a "rocky road", before adding two more entities; his motion failed 4-2, with only he and Commissioner Chimer Clark in favor.
Shinn also flagged that both new organizations are religious-based, saying the county needs to be careful about how it does business with them even though he has no objection to faith-based providers themselves.
The board ultimately approved both new agreements 4-2, with Commissioners Marianne Waldrop, David Quinn, Chris Chadwick, and Clark voting yes; Commissioner Chadwick argued that jail diversion keeps qualifying inmates out of an overcrowded jail system and noted the sheriff, not the county manager, is really the one in custody of those inmates. Commissioner Keith Moore was absent.
Your voice. Every platform. No writing required.
You ghost your own socials by Wednesday. SureThing learns your voice and ships native posts to LinkedIn, X, Instagram, and TikTok, without you writing a thing.
With clinician Patricia Baker handling crisis calls only part of the week and no data on how often officers step in without her, Redwood City will complete a program evaluation by January 2027 to decide whether to expand coverage
New Legislation
LA County's jail diversion programs serve nearly 5,000 people at any given time, and the Judicial Council of California reports more than 17,000 people were granted mental health diversion statewide between 2019 and 2025.
SB 1373, introduced by state Sen. Shannon Grove, has passed the Senate and would let either party request an additional court hearing before diversion is granted, aiming to curb what Grove describes as overuse of mental health diversion filings.
Dr. Clemens Hong, director of community programs for LA County's Department of Health Services, says more than half of participants in the county's diversion program never return to jail, and warns the bill's added hearings could delay care and leave people sitting in jail for an extra three weeks.
The bill is designed to work alongside Assembly Bill 46, which would require courts to find a defendant poses no substantial safety risk in the community and that a proposed treatment plan is clinically appropriate before granting diversion.
The story follows Zacharia Persson, diverted through LA County's FIST program after an arrest revealed undiagnosed schizophrenia; he credits diversion — including housing placement and treatment — with turning his situation around, and the bill must still pass the Assembly before it could become law.
