Smith was handpicked by the Senate committee from the 39 Community Mental Health and Mental Retardation Centers in Texas. Three other Center CEOs in Texas also presented information during a busy hearing.

“It was a very busy meeting and I was honored to have been chosen,” Smith said of the whirlwind trip to Austin this week on crisis redesign funding. “This is a very important issue and something our center, our board and our community have been working on for many years even before it was put in front of the public. We are committed to improving mental health care in Texas and was glad the Senate Finance Committee asked for our center’s opinion.”

West Texas Centers for MHMR was awarded $432,869 May 12 to fund emergency inpatient psychiatric care for people with mental illness in its 23-county service area.

The additional funding will be used to contract with local, private psychiatric hospitals when Big Spring State Hospital — a state-funded psychiatric hospital — is full.

“We are just thrilled to receive a portion of the crisis redesign funding,” Smith said. “We have long known that our patients are better served locally when they have the support of friends and family close by. This is a great need, particularly for our law enforcement, who have to transport patients long distances. ”

Prior to the new funding, West Texas Centers sent patients to one of the state’s sister psychiatric hospitals when Big Spring State Hospital was full.

West Texas Centers for MHMR is the state-designated Mental Health Authority for 23 rural counties in West Texas, including Andrews Borden, Crane, Dawson, Fisher, Gaines, Garza, Glasscock, Howard, Kent, Loving, Martin, Mitchell, Nolan, Reeves, Runnels, Scurry, Terrell, Terry, Upton, Ward, Winkler and Yoakum counties. Mental health services are provided to more than 2,500 patients and their families each month.

During the last legislative session, lawmakers allocated $82 million to improve crisis mental health services in Texas and asked the 39 local mental health centers, including West Texas Centers to submit bids for a portion of the funding.

“We thought our greatest need was for hospitalization,” Smith said. “When there’s an emergency and a person needs to be hospitalized immediately and all the beds here are full, we need to find some place where our patients can receive care. This will give us some much-needed relief and give our patients confidence that they can receive care close to home when Big Spring State Hospital is full.

“Big Spring State Hospital provides great care, but because of the demand for hospitalization, their beds are sometimes full, as are beds at all the state-funded psychiatric hospitals.”

When the legislature approved the new funding during the last biennium, it asked the state’s local Mental Health Authorities for assistance in reducing the need for hospitalization, Smith said.

West Texas Centers — with the assistance of patients, families, law enforcement and emergency room professionals — redesigned its crisis hotline services, Mobile Crisis Outreach Teams and “on-demand” emergency psychiatric services.

With this funding, West Texas Centers will purchase private inpatient psychiatric beds for rapid crisis stabilization in communities adjacent to its 23-county service area.

“I think our quick response to their requests assisted us in receiving this new funding,” Smith said. “This will just improve care for our entire area and the entire state.”