Q&A with Bernalillo County's first deputy county manager for behavioral health
May 18—After months of searching, the Bernalillo County Commission approved hiring the county's first deputy county manager for behavioral health in April.
The position was created in 2023 to oversee the county's Behavioral Health Division, which includes the CARE Campus, the Behavioral Health Initiative, the Tiny Home Village, and the Resource Reentry Center.
The new Deputy County Manager for Behavioral Health Wayne Lindstrom has worked in the behavioral health field for 53 years, including a stint from 2014 to 2019 directing behavioral health services for the state of New Mexico. His last role was vice president of business development and consulting for nonprofit RI International, which is headquartered in Phoenix and operates and consults on crisis response systems in the behavioral health arena. He has also worked as a clinician.
The Journal asked Lindstrom about his approach to the role.
The following interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Q: Why did you want to take on this job?
A: I, particularly at this stage of my career, like being able to work with large systems and do impactful work, and I thought the time I spent with the state of New Mexico was one of the best gigs of my career, and I feel much the same way about this one.
Q: Do you have a philosophical approach to the role?
A: At the heart of things, it's about those we serve. One of my pet peeves about our field, generally, is that oftentimes we make it too much about us and what's convenient for us. ...
We finally learned in the last 20 years to appreciate the competencies of people with lived experience who are in recovery and integrating them in all of our work.
Another pet peeve of mine has been that we devote the bulk of our resources to treatment, and we don't touch people's lives until things have really progressed far too long, so that they're not only having behavioral health conditions, but all kinds of health conditions as a result of years of drinking and abusing their bodies. ... I'm a big advocate for primary prevention and early intervention. I'd like to begin to see us shift our priorities and our resources to prevent these conditions in the first place, rather than waiting so long.
Q: What do you think the county, is doing well and are there areas where you think the county could improve when it comes to behavioral health services?
A: I've been extremely impressed with the culture of the county, the salary structure, the benefits package, etc. I think that blend of salary and benefits with the culture positions the county very well in terms of recruiting and retention.
We're creating a new division for behavioral health, and one of the things that I want is to have an office of continuous quality improvement that reports directly to me, so that that's the central focus, relative to everything that we do. ... I'm also a firm believer in ending all the silos that tend to get created in bureaucracies.
Q: Is there anything else you want the public to understand about your vision for the Behavioral Health Division?
A: (First), over everything else, is for the public to be socialized around 988 (the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, which takes phone calls and offers text and chat). ... If you look at 911, which everybody knows now, the first 911 call was in Alabama in 1968. By 1987, only 50% of Americans had access to 911. ... It took 60 years for 911 to be where we are today. I don't want 60 years to go by for people to understand what 988 is.
Q: Is there anything else you want to add?
A: I've heard over the time I've been in New Mexico about the city and the county not always planning together and tripping over each other and duplicating services. I think there's an acute awareness around those historical issues, and there seems to be a more universal commitment that it's time not to repeat that history and figure out how we can better work and plan together.
