Voice of Calm: Captain is liaison on mental health

Patricia Murray has a calming aura about her.

It is a good quality for someone who often finds herself in the middle of the passionate debate about the quality of mental-health care in Forsyth County.

Murray, a captain with the Winston-Salem Police Department, with 23 years on the force, is a liaison to the community on mental-health issues, serving on several local advisory committees.

"She is effective in her role as police captain, and as you have heard, she is a voice of reason in the local mental-health debate," said Barry Rountree, an assistant police chief.

Murray said that unlike many people serving as officials and advocates in the field, she does not have a family member who deals with mental-health issues. She said that allows her to be impartial in her comments.

"But I am acutely aware of the stigma associated with mental illness, such as ‘Why can't these people pull themselves up from their bootstraps?'" Murray said. "I've learned that people don't ask for this illness and often can't control what is happening to them.

"They just want to be treated with respect, as anyone with a physical illness would."

Murray's soft-spoken sincerity and credibility are often the keys to not only helping soothe an individual having a mental-health crisis, but also persuading fellow law-enforcement officers to value the crisis-invention training, or CIT, they receive from local advocates.

"I don't really know how she first got involved with CIT, but I do know she is part of its heart," said Louise Whealton, the president of the Forsyth County chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness.

More than 100 local and 300 regional law-enforcement and health-care security officers have participated in the 40-hour program since it began in February 2007. Scott Cunningham, the police chief of Winston-Salem, said he wants all officers to receive CIT training.

Whealton said she understands why officers may be leery of receiving crisis training from mental-health professionals.

"They have reasons to be skeptical since their lives are on the line," Whealton said.

"So at the beginning of every class, Pat stands up and introduces herself. She assures the new group of officers that the information they learn will be useful to them. She shares several of her experiences with folks in crisis because of mental illness.

"She also describes things she's done wrong, so the student officers will feel that they can make their own mistakes," Whealton said. "Because she praises the program so highly, the officers open up to the training."

Whealton said that when the crisis training helps an officer defuse a potentially volatile situation, "they rush to tell her of their success" -- something that Murray said helps validate her participation.

One example of Murray serving as a voice of reason came last March when she spoke on behalf of adding a 50-bed psychiatric emergency department at Old Vineyard Behavioral Health Services.

The expansion has drawn opposition from some local advocates because of the Medicaid limits on who would be served there. They also have concerns about the further commercialization of mental-health care since Old Vineyard's for-profit parent company -- Universal Health Services Inc. -- has had federal and state investigations into some of its operations, including Old Vineyard.

Murray said that having the psychiatric emergency department would help clarify where law-enforcement officers should take an individual experiencing a mental-health crisis. Old Vineyard expects to have the expansion completed in July 2011.

It was Murray's idea to have law-enforcement officers, including Cunningham and Sheriff Bill Schatzman, and officials from local hospitals meet to discuss the increase in mentally ill patients taken to emergency departments.

State law requires an officer to stay with patients taken into custody through an involuntary commitment.

In the past three years, there have been instances in which officers, sometimes working rotating shifts, stayed with a mental-health patient in an emergency department for up to eight days.

Since the meetings, a pilot program at Forsyth Medical Center that involves assessing the risk of combativeness in a patient has reduced significantly the amount of time required of officers.

"What I admire about Capt. Murray is that she remains focused on the real issues -- what is best for the person with mental illness and how can we help that person access treatment, as opposed to the politics that, sadly, accompanies mental-health issues," said Andy Hagler, the executive director of the local Mental Health Association chapter.

Murray downplays her contributions, saying that as she finds value in a technique or a strategy, she shares her experience with others.

"We may bring different experiences and have different roles in this debate," Murray said. "But a difference can be made when people take the time to understand a problem, then become resolved to get people the help they need when they need it."

rcraver@wsjournal.com


727-7376

Patricia Murray

• AGE: 43.

• HOMETOWN/RESIDENCE:
Forsyth County.

• EDUCATION: Bachelor's degree in criminal justice from Western Carolina University.

• CAREER EXPERIENCE/ACHIEVEMENTS: 23 years with Winston-Salem Police Department; serves on several mental-health
advisory committees.

• FAMILY: Two children.