Piper Davidson's mission is to get mental health services to the inmates who need them

Piper Davidson thinks of herself as someone along the lines of an air traffic controller − if the Wayne County jail had an air traffic controller.

Davidson, who has been with OneEighty since fall 2013, provides service coordination for inmates with persistent and severe mental illnesses.

But once she explains it, you’d be inclined to think an actual air traffic controller has the easier job.

Davidson emphasizes she does not do her work in a vacuum. She relies on law enforcement, hospitals, mental health providers, the Mental Health & Recovery Board of Wayne and Holmes Counties, the “boots on the ground” workers at the Salvation Army and the Trinity United Church of Christ daily breakfast, housing case managers and providers, group homes, regional psychiatric facilities. The list goes on.

And beyond all that, Davidson provides the mental health overview section of the 40-hour law enforcement Crisis Intervention Team training offered by NAMI, which is financially supported by the Mental Health & Recovery Board. Her angle, she said, is “these are human beings with a mental health condition.”

It’s easy for officers to lose sight of that, she said, especially if they’re being yelled at or having things thrown at them. For them, “it feels very personal,” while Davidson said, “I recognize that as a symptom of a severe mental illness and I do not take it personally.”

A state honor to herald the works she does

So adept is Davidson at what she does that she was named the Ohio Crisis Intervention Team Health Professional of the Year by the Northeast Ohio Medical University’s Criminal Justice Coordinating Center of Excellence. She was nominated by Scott Rotolo, assistant Wooster Police chief, on behalf of the NAMI Wayne and Holmes Counties CIT Advisory Council and the Wooster Police Department

“Piper has consistently demonstrated a strong commitment to the goals of the Ohio CIT programs. She has shown exceptional dedication to the CIT and actively worked towards improving outcomes for individuals in crisis,” he wrote in his nomination letter. “I have lost count of how often she advocates for inmates and others she has linked with crisis services to ensure they have a successful outcome. She understands how important it is for us to move toward transforming our local crisis response system to one where law enforcement and jails are used when there is an imminent threat to safety or serious criminal matter and that the criminal justice system is not the appropriate system for many.”

“I was humbled, honored. I felt honored,” Davidson said of receiving the award. “I feel like we all deserve this, countless names of people, people I don’t even know. Everyone who has any part in wanting to help our fellow human beings live their best lives.”

In her father's footsteps in many ways

The number of severely mentally ill persons who end up in jail has been rising steadily across the country over the years, a fact Davidson believes had its start in the deinstitutionalization movement of the 1980s. Ironically, her late father was once chief of police at the former Apple Creek Developmental Center.

“He really dealt with the very same population,” she said. “It’s funny how it’s come full circle.”

Davidson had been working at the jail as an outpatient counselor and also completed diagnostic assessments for the CADET program when the job of justice service manager came available.

“I was excited, honestly,” she said. “... But I was anxious. I was excited for the shift over to the mental health focus.”

Most days, it’s a lot. Davidson’s job is to keep data on referrals and try to keep track of a population in which “most are repeat offenders, many are homeless, many are in the emergency room” while arrangements can be made to move them somewhere else.

“Somewhere else” could be a group home or a psychiatric facility. The problem is openings in both are difficult to find and chances are the severely mentally ill person is released from the jail before a plan can be established. Rotolo, Davidson said, noticed post-pandemic that there were people regularly cycling in and out of the jail and began trying to coordinate efforts to keep them out of incarceration. “Jail was the hub everyone kept going in and out and in and out,” she said.

Sometimes jail is not the answer

While there are a few with more concerning offenses, the majority are arrested on suspicion of criminal trespass at a place that already has a no-trespass order against them. They’re there, Davidson said, often because they are not taking their medications, they have received no psychiatric services that would lead to medication, because they are homeless or some combination of any of that.

Jail is not the answer, either. The severely mentally ill inmate likely is not compliant with medication and can be paranoid or delusional and often is vulnerable. “For everyone’s safety, we have to isolate them,” Davidson said.

And therein is another problem: There are only four medical observation cells, one for a suicide watch. Some of that problem will be alleviated with the coming jail expansion.

Davidson said she and her cohorts will try to set the inmate up with as many services as they can to stabilize them as they leave the jail, but often there is no next step.

“It’s just a broken system for these folks,” she said, though she is ever thankful for the help jail leadership provides in enabling her and other mental health workers to assist inmates in need of services.

See the person who's buried beneath the illness

It would seem to be depressing work and sometimes, Davidson said, it is. But she pins her hopes to the small victories.

“Once upon a time, they came from family; they had people who loved them,” she said, and that’s what she tells officers in CIT training, because they likely are seeing the illness, not the person buried underneath.

She recalled hearing a presentation from a man who had gotten help to get his bipolar I illness under control, had learned to manage it and was leading a fruitful life. He proves, Davidson said, recovery is both possible and ongoing.

“This is such important work that we’re doing,” Davidson said. “We’re working with human lives.”

Tami Mosser is the executive support specialist for Mental Health & Recovery Board of Wayne and Holmes Counties.

This article originally appeared on The Daily Record: OneEighty's Piper Davidson is Ohio Crisis Intervention Team Health POY