Brazos County commissioners to discuss starting mental health court at Wednesday meeting

BRYAN, Texas (KBTX) - One of the items on the agenda of Wednesday’s Brazos County Commissioner’s Court meeting will be to discuss adding a mental health court for Brazos County.

The mental health court would serve as a specialty court that would take people with mental health issues and treat them differently, as opposed to going to a normal court setting.

Precinct 2 Commissioner Russ Ford says with the population size in Brazos County, a mental health court should have been established a long time ago. Ford is hopeful that he and his fellow commissioners will be able to start the process of getting it established.

“The outcome I look for tomorrow would be that our commissioner’s court will say, ‘hey, this is something that we should have done when our population his 200,000. Now let’s move forward,’” said Ford.

County jails provide inpatient mental health care across the state. Commissioners are hoping that a mental health court would help break a cycle of citizens not getting proper help.

“We need to be able to have people get into treatment that will help them address their issues that are mental health-related as opposed to having them be in county jail then be released, said Precinct 1 Commissioner Steve Aldrich.

Brazos County commissioners say they are hopeful they will be able to start a mental health court and apply for federal grants for funding.

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