One year in, Bluffton police mental health advocate celebrates … – Charleston Post Courier

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Clear skies. Low 31F. Winds light and variable.
Updated: December 27, 2022 @ 11:10 pm
Community Mental Health Advocate Hannah Anderson in the lobby of the Bluffton Police Department on Dec. 20, 2022. Michael Cuglietta/Staff

Community Mental Health Advocate Hannah Anderson in the lobby of the Bluffton Police Department on Dec. 20, 2022. Michael Cuglietta/Staff
BLUFFTON — A large part of Hannah Anderson’s workday is spent monitoring 911 calls. In keeping an eye out for public disturbances, she also looks for signs of “altered mental status” — the EMS code for a person who might be suffering from mental illness.
“If someone is in public having a manic episode, a lot of times it’ll come out as a disturbance,” she said. In those cases, the type of criminal intervention police officers are trained for might not be the best course of action. As the community mental health advocate for the Bluffton Police Department, Anderson is there to offer a different kind of intervention. 
“A lot of people don’t seek help because it’s overwhelming. They don’t even know where to start. So I do that for them. I’ll give them several options of places that they can talk to,” she said.  
She keeps a list of mental health providers available to the community. She knows which places accept which insurance, so she can better connect people to the help they need. If a person does not have insurance or they lack the means to pay for mental health care, she has options for them, too. She does not call the people she works with criminals, nor suspects, regardless of what they may or may not have done. Rather, they are her clients. 
In November, Anderson celebrated her one-year anniversary on the force. While positions like hers have become more common, especially in larger cities, her role was the first of its kind in the Lowcountry. Because her title was newly created, when she showed up for work there was no standard operating procedure to guide her. All of the ground she has covered in the past year had to be newly forged. 
“There’s a lot of people, when I call them up, they’re like, ‘Oh, I didn’t know the police department had a position like that.’ So it’s kind of cool, especially for a smaller agency to do something like this,” she said. 
Had it not been for Town Council Member Bridgette Frazier, there would be no such advocate in Bluffton. 
“I’m not a complainer, I’m a doer. I knew the only way to really effect change was to have a seat at the table,” said Frazier, who won her seat on the town council in 2020.   
Frazier saw firsthand how impactful it can be for someone to find the right care when a loved one of hers who was battling severe depression turned suicidal. 
“They didn’t have a lot of resources and had no insurance,” she said. They were able to find their way to the Lowcountry’s chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI).  
“NAMI works on a sliding scale. They give people a solid plan to actually get towards the path of healing and becoming whole again. Their services are phenomenal, but a lot of people don’t know this,” she said.  
Frazier, whose father, Oscar Frazier, was the poet laureate of Bluffton as well as a town council member and the first Black mayor tempore, has been a community organizer and activist for as long as she can remember. She was living in Florida when Trayvon Martin was killed in 2012.
“I started a lot of the first protests and vigils. I got people coming together to talk about those injustices and how do we have conversations to alleviate a similar situation in our communities,” she said.   
It was the same question she asked herself after the 2020 murder of George Floyd while in the custody of Minneapolis police officers. Only then, she had a voice on the town council. 
“Let’s say someone steals a pack of meat from a grocery store, instead of calling the cops out, let’s call a social worker. Because why are they stealing a pack of meat? There’s something going on,” she said.  
Frazier was the one who proposed using money in the town budget to add a mental health advocate to the police force. She got a little pushback. It was suggested that they save money by making the position part-time. But any serious person, she argued, was going to want fulltime pay. She also argued that a mental health advocate would have a two-fold benefit.
“It provides the resident in crisis with assistance. But also it’s a mitigation strategy, because if we’re sending in law enforcement who is trained to deal with crime to handle issues that are more behavioral and need de-escalation techniques, then they’re liable if something goes wrong, and the town becomes liable,” she said. 
Bluffton Police Department headquarters. Michael Cuglietta/Staff
When Anderson is not at her desk monitoring 911 calls, she can usually be found on a ride-along with an officer. If a mental health call comes in while she is in the field, they will respond to it. She has responded to 33 calls so far this year.
She recalls one woman who suffered from a substance abuse problem, who was often being reported to police for both public and domestic disturbances. She doesn’t much like police officers, Anderson explained. But she and the woman have built up a rapport. In one instance when they responded to a call, the woman was out in her driveway screaming. 
“I got out of the car and I interacted with her first. I talked to her and I was able to calm her down and get her back inside so we could then handle the situation,” Anderson said. Had she not been there to de-escalate, she explained, it quickly could have gone south and the woman could have ended up in handcuffs. 
“Officers don’t like to arrest people who have obvious mental health issues. Nobody likes that,” Anderson said. 
A big part of her job is follow-up. In the example of the woman with the substance abuse issue, over the past year Anderson has gotten to know the woman’s husband and adult son. They will often call for direction and support. 
“Sometimes a follow-up takes up my whole day because the family is asking for additional resources and I have to do research and make phone calls,” she said. 
Anderson works closely with Michelle Casey, executive director of the Lowcountry’s chapter of NAMI. In order to make it easier for professionals to connect people with the proper mental health services, Casey is in the process of forming a committee of local mental health resources, which would include Anderson, members of the public safety department and other similar agencies. The aim is to create a space where they can bounce ideas off each other and insure an open line of communication. 
“I’m pretty excited about that,” said Anderson.  
This spring, the Bluffton Police Department was recognized by the Municipal Association of South Carolina (MASC) for achievements in public safety. The award was, in large part, due to Anderson’s work. 
MASC has not been the only entity to recognize the impact Anderson has had. Philip Foot, the assistant county administrator for public safety in Beaufort, was so impressed with Anderson, he reached out to her to get direction on creating a similar position at the public safety department. Anderson helped Foot draft both the job description and the wanted ad. She sat in on the interviews and was instrumental in choosing Mary Madison for the role of Mental Health Coordinator of Beaufort County. Madison works with the Beaufort County Corrections Department, not the the police force. 
“Mary is also young and early in her career. So it’s kind of nice that we can bounce ideas off of each other,” Anderson said. 
Because there had never been a position like hers in the Bluffton Police Department, Anderson has benefited from guidance from larger police forces who have created roles or entire units to address mental illness. Matthew Weatherly is a retired captain for the Baltimore Sherriff’s Department, which has a mobile crisis team that pairs specially trained officers with licensed mental health clinicians to provide mental health services to people in crisis. 
“He’s been very helpful in trying to get this off the ground, sending me policies and all kinds of stuff,” Anderson said.  
Both Frazier and Anderson hope their community will continue to work toward ending the negative perception surrounding mental health. 
“There’s been a stigma with mental health for so long. It’s been an excuse for people to be treated a certain way and even criminalized,” Frazier said. 
Anderson recently completed a 40-hour training program to become a certified instructor on crisis intervention. She will first train the officers in Bluffton on crisis intervention, including de-escalation techniques. She then will open the training up to officers in other departments as well as any community members interested in such training. 
Although Anderson is not a mental health counselor she says when she goes out on ride-alongs, the officers will often vent to her. 
“Because they know I work in the mental health field and they know it’s not going to leave the car,” she said. But she added “No matter how hard I try and understand what they’re going through, I will never fully grasp it because I’m not a police officer.” 
When the new police chief takes office, Anderson plans to propose creating a peer support position. She would like to hire someone who is retired from law enforcement to work with members on the Bluffton force. Just like the members of the community they serve, Anderson feels the officers’ mental health should be a priority. She also plans to propose that the department adopt a therapy dog. 
“I went to Beaufort City and they have an emotional support dog, and their dog just kind of wanders around the police department and patrol interacts with it. It’s a big hit,” she said. 
Going forward, Frazier would like to see Anderson team up with school resource officers. 
“Our schools do not have psychologists anymore or therapists or social workers who function with behavioral issues,” Frazier said. 
Just about all the schools are currently doing in this arena, according to Frazier, is testing for learning disabilities to help craft learning plans. As a former educator, she recalls instances where a kid was dealing with physical abuse at home or even contemplating suicide.
“Bridgette asked me if I could be more of a resource to the schools, and I am definitely open to that,” Anderson said. 
Frazier and Anderson would both like to see Anderson’s position expanded into an entire department, with social workers and mental health counselors on staff. When asked if there was room in the budget, Anderson replied: “They don’t nickel and dime. They are very willing to put things like that into the budget, to ensure that the police department keeps going in a progressive direction.”
One year ago, the Bluffton Police Department hired their first Community Mental Health Advocate, in an attempt to connect citizens in crisis with mental health care, as opposed to criminal intervention. The position has been so successful, the department has received recognition from the state and neighboring agencies have begun creating similar roles.  Read moreOne year in, Bluffton police mental health advocate celebrates successes, looks for more
Every year coroners must identify next of kin for deceased veterans who have not been claimed by family members. Sometimes no one steps up.  Read moreBeaufort cemetery offers unclaimed veterans their final honor
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