Speaker 3: Now we move to item 14.
Speaker 1: Communication from Councilmember Pearce recommendation to receive and file. The Department of Health and Human Services report on suicide prevention and direct staff to participate consistent consistently and the LA MH Suicide Prevention Network.
Speaker 3: It's not going to report on this.
Speaker 2: Like to postpone it since Kelly Colby's not available.
Speaker 3: Okay, fine.
Speaker 2: Unless she is. There she is. I would love to hear this item now. Thank you.
Speaker 3: The judge. Yeah.
Speaker 6: Good evening, honorable mayor and council members. I want to thank you for the opportunity to highlight suicide and mental health as a public health concern for the city of Long Beach. The age adjusted death rate due to suicide for the city of Long Beach during the three year period of 2014 to 2016 was 10.5 for every 100,000 people, which runs slightly higher than we find in Los Angeles County at 7.8 deaths per 100,000. In California, overall 10.4 deaths during that same period. So populations like older adults, whites, African-Americans and the LGBTQ community and our veterans commit suicide at higher rates. Long Beach has services to address these to address the suicidal ideation. But the money doesn't come directly to us, and nor do we control or manage it. L.A. County Department of Mental Health is the agency responsible for providing mental health services in Long Beach and a managers and administers state and federal funds for mental health services. These funds don't come directly to us, but they do provide many services in the city of Long Beach. So with these funds, they're able to they co-locate mental health clinicians, which we paired with our local police department to operate six mental evaluation teams. These met teams respond to calls for service when a mental health concern is involved. They operate a psychiatric mobile response team, which is different from our met units. They operate the Access Center helpline, which is a 24 hour, seven day a week phone number to respond to mental health emergencies. And they fund outpatient mental health services at 22 different locations within the city. And they also provide a number of trainings, a through an annual conference and be through others that we can request. The Long Beach also has recently opened the Star View Behavioral Health Urgent Care Center, which is a 24 hour psychiatric, urgent care for up to 12 adults and six adolescents. They provide 24 hour nursing staff and mental health therapists, as well as walk in opportunities. Many of the nonprofits within the city and national organizations also offer support, such as NAMI, Long Beach, which is the National Alliance on Mental Illness, which provides education, skills, training and support related to mental illness, including suicide. The Trevor Project, which provides crisis intervention and suicide prevention training specific to Lgtbq youth and the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, which is one 800 273 talk. So there are others. There is a statewide suicide prevention plan in the county. L.A. County also participates and has their own because the county is the primary lead agency for suicide prevention. Our recommendation has been to participate primarily with them in their work and to be able to coordinate with them as best as possible and to request different training opportunities to be able to come in and train different parties and folks within the city of Long Beach with that andrea report. And I'm open for questions.
Speaker 3: Thank you. The only public in and say. So. Yes, mysterious.
Speaker 5: Very good to click as the address. Suicide obviously is a very serious issue. And what I read when I read this item, I thought the last thing in the world, anybody with mental instability and contemplating what might be one two might commit suicide. The last thing in the world that person would want to do. Is interface with a councilperson from the second district.
Speaker 3: Thank you.
Speaker 5: My view is certainly the most mentally unstable councilperson that this city has ever had. Based upon. I've lived here and I've been to one or two meetings. Since 1976. In fact, I even thought that maybe the best way. She could. So server district. Was. Give the district and the city a nice Christmas present. By sometime in the next two weeks.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 5: Walking over to and start across. The bridge. To San Pedro. Stop in the middle of the Vincent Thomas Bridge.
Speaker 3: Mr.. Good here, please. Mr.. Good you. I think we should stay on the seven max. That's a.
Speaker 2: You're done.
Speaker 3: Yeah. We can move on from there now.
Speaker 5: And I realize.
Speaker 3: Thank you. That's all I got. That's okay. I can handle this, please. Thank you, Mr. Guru. Thank you very much.
Speaker 2: I would like to thank you. Yes. I want to thank Kelly for her work on this. I want to thank our health department. I really fortunate to have the county as a partner in this. When I brought this forward several months back, I would remind people that it's not only brought to my attention that Long Beach has a higher rate than L.A. County, but it's often with people that don't have a history of having suicidal thoughts. And these are not long planned out suicidal attempts, often as the majority of people that all of a sudden have an episode and don't know where to go for resources. And I say that because one of the things that I left off of this agenda item, in addition to doing trainings, is also a public face to it. And I don't want to ask for a budget to go and do a big, you know, PR stunt. But I would like to work with the Health Department at a citywide level with our violence prevention and whoever we think would make sense to do a public march. I know some other cities have done a Suicide Awareness Day, something that is very public so that we can engage with folks that might not have a history of engaging with our mental health systems. And also to remind folks that this item is really important to me since my mother did commit suicide and had several attempts to do so. And so recognizing that sometimes you don't know what might happen and might happen to somebody close to you. It might happen to somebody in the workplace. And as a council member in downtown, we do have the most public suicides, whether it's from buildings or bridges. And so I wanted to make sure that this time in the holidays, when we have an increased suicide rate, that we as a city are demonstrating to our constituents that we're here and we want to have as much resources as possible. I think partnering with the county is a smart choice instead of doing our own suicide prevention plan. And so I urge my council colleagues to support this item.
Speaker 3: Thank you. Thank you very much. Mr. Price.
Speaker 7: I think this is an excellent item and I thank Councilmember Pearce for bringing it forward. I do have a question about our Met team. Do we keep any sort of stats on the kind of work that they do, the encounters that they have? You know what to what data do we have about the effectiveness of the program? I've been on many ride alongs. They are a very, very effective program. I'm just curious what data tracking we do.
Speaker 5: Councilmember Price We do keep stats. I just don't have them with me right now. But they do do extraordinary work. Make many contacts a day and I believe saved many.
Speaker 8: People's lives during the.
Speaker 5: Course of their work.
Speaker 7: So. So, Chief, we might maybe have that as an item for public safety down the road. Maybe we can get kind of an update on that, and I can provide a summary for Council on that topic, because I think that's an important topic.
Speaker 5: Yes, ma'am.
Speaker 7: Thank you. I'll let you know. Thank you.
Speaker 3: Thank you. Constable Price. Councilman Austin.
Speaker 8: Thank you. I'll be very brief. I think this this item was very education of anything. And there were a few data points that that jumped out at me. And one was the fact that was in most many a good majority of these things that methods to that that individuals use to get to are in their lives are with firearms. And we I know had a commitment as a city a few years ago to to crack down on prohibited possessors. I think we need to continue that, because I think that that could have an impact. But the the issue of of of guns and guns being used in the wrong way, gun violence, not only does it contribute to suicide numbers, but it obviously contributes to our homicide numbers as well. And so I think that that's an important number and important data point to point out. And I just want to understand that this is not a new partnership. This is an ongoing partnership with the county of Los Angeles to correct. That is correct. Thank you.
Speaker 3: Yes. Councilman Pierce with.
Speaker 2: A yes and two, clarifying your last question. It's that we're participating partially right now, but your recommendation was to participate more fully with them. Correct?
Speaker 6: Yes. So we will we have identified one or two staff members who we're hoping that can attend most of the meetings when they're when their schedules allow. But we were recently at we were at the most recent meeting, and we learned a whole lot of we learned some about some curriculum and other things for the school district and other things. So we'll be gathering that information and posting it along the way.
Speaker 2: Great. Thank you for that. And then to go to your point around the gun violence, I know that we've done gun buybacks, but we might have a change policy on that. I'm not sure. Police Chief, if you could talk about some of the the tools that we've done to try to reduce the number of firearms that we have in our community. I remember. What was it two years ago there was a gun buyback program in North Long Beach. I think.
Speaker 8: It was way more than that.
Speaker 2: Four years ago.
Speaker 8: Five years ago.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 2: I remember it vaguely.
Speaker 5: Councilwoman Pierce, we have had a gun buyback programs in the past, at least for our city. We found that that wasn't as successful as some other things that we've been doing. Again, I don't have the stats in front of me, but I can provide them to you. Our officers and detectives have been doing an amazing job. Our confiscation of weapons is up by double digits this year. And as Councilman Austin commented on before, we do focus on prohibitive possessors, and that's when we're dealing with not.
Speaker 8: Only individuals who are suffering from mental illness, but when.
Speaker 5: We're dealing with, for example, threats that we get.
Speaker 8: To our schools when we do.
Speaker 5: Follow up and search warrants. So, for example, on a dispatch in the last 24 hours, we were on an incident where we seized over 35.
Speaker 8: Weapons from.
Speaker 5: Somebody who shouldn't have had them from a calling party, who was afraid that this her male counterpart was going to hurt her. So it's calls like that where we're we're very successful and our numbers are up this year. And as soon as I get the numbers, I can share them with all of you, as I do with the crime stats.
Speaker 2: Great. Thank you so much.
Speaker 5: You're welcome.
Speaker 3: Thank you very much. I'd like to say a few words on that, because the fact that I think this is a great item that you brought to the that you guys, Suzanne, has a lot of, you know, I think stigma attached to it and anything to educate our communities and employees is always welcome to our city. So thank you very much for bringing this item for, you know, normal community to come attend this. If not, we go for the vote.
Speaker 1: Councilman Austin. Motion carries.
Recommendation to receive and file the Department of Health and Human Services report on Suicide Prevention provided in a memo on October 16, 2018; direct staff to participate consistently in the LACDMH Suicide Prevention Network and its response to existing suicide prevention plans; increase the number of trainings available for Long Beach residents, businesses, and city staff; and report back annually on the progress and effectiveness of staff recommendations.