Hoping to prevent tragedies such as those at Sandy Hook and Columbine, Orange County Mayor Teresa Jacobs is tapping "the best and brightest" community leaders to form a study commission on the mental-health needs of children and young adults.
"When the Sandy Hook shootings happened, I wanted to respond immediately by getting deputies into the schools," Jacobs said, referring to the shootings of 26 elementary-school kids and adults in Connecticut in December by a troubled 20-year-old.
"But that's treating the symptoms and not the cause," she said. "Hopefully, we're coming of age as a society so that we recognize mental illness is not some kind of character weakness, but a legitimate physical illness that has to be addressed and treated."
The panel will hold its inaugural meeting at 9 a.m. Monday at the Board of County Commissioners chambers, 201 S. Rosalind Ave. in Orlando. Eighteen local officials and representatives — led by Belvin Perry Jr., chief judge of the 9th Judicial Circuit, which comprises Orange and Osceola counties, and Florida Hospital Regional Vice President Richard Morrison — will spend the next six months examining the community's current resources and pinpointing the gaps.
They also will be charged with figuring out how to pay for improvements.
"We can't afford to ignore the problem because we think we can't afford the solution," Jacobs said in an interview. "And we can't ask for state funding if I can't tell them how much we need and what precisely it's for."
The commission also will include a student from the University of Central Florida. In March, police discovered 30-year-old James Oliver Seevakumaran was stockpiling weapons in his UCF dorm room and planning a campus killing spree. Seevakumaran committed suicide as police were en route to his building.
"We're asking parents and youth who don't serve on the commission to get involved at the committee level," said Donna Wyche, manager of Orange County's mental-health and homeless division and a member of the new commission. "We need to look at how they can get the help they need, not just the help that's available."
Glen Casel, president and CEO of Community-Based Care of Central Florida — the nonprofit that contracts with the state to manage the child-welfare system locally — said families with mentally ill children have few places to turn.
"Say there's a 16- or 17-year-old showing signs of psychosis or schizophrenia — what is the single mother of that teen supposed to do?" said Casel, who is also serving on the panel. "Residential treatment is $400 a day. There are a few low-cost options, but the space is limited. So usually it comes down to advocating for yourself. And of course some parents don't have the energy, stamina, understanding or time away from their jobs to pursue it."
Orange County has made some progress in recent years, including the creation of a free, long-term outpatient program called Wraparound Orange that works with low-income families. Children are referred to that program after getting into trouble with law enforcement.
But Muriel Jones, executive director of the Federation of Families of Central Florida — a nonprofit family-support organization for those dealing with mental illness — said the needs are still "huge."
In particular, Jones hopes to open a respite-care facility for weary family caregivers and set up a mobile youth-crisis unit.
The latter — already available in a few communities across the nation — is a team of mental-health professionals who would answer 911 calls along with police when a child is having "a breakdown or meltdown," Jones said.
"They come in to de-escalate the situation," said Jones, whose son was diagnosed with schizophrenia at age 14. "Then if the child is truly in crisis and needs to be hospitalized, the team would call an ambulance to come and take him there. That's a big difference from having a police officer come to the home or school and put the child in handcuffs."
Jones, too, will serve on the commission.
Jacobs said whatever changes come as a result of the group, help needs to reach troubled children as early as possible.
"My own brother — I didn't know for much of his life that he was mentally ill," Jacobs said. "If I had known it, things might have been different. So if I can make a difference in someone else's life, if we can help people improve the quality of their lives, that's something I want to do."
ksantich@tribune.com or 407-420-5503
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