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Holliston - Local Town Pages

Holliston welcomes Jail Diversion Program mental health clinician

Lyan Albino filled the position in January
By Theresa Knapp 
The Jail Diversion Program (JDP) is a partnership between the Massachusetts Department of Mental Health and local police departments to divert people from jail if the issue is mental-health related. 
The Holliston Police Department has been part of the co-response program since 2015, and now (again) shares a JDP clinician with the towns of Hopkinton and Sherborn. The regional position is fully funded through a grant from the Department of Mental Health. The clinician is an employee of the Town of Holliston and will have an office in each of the member towns. 
The position had been vacant for two years but was filled in January by Lyan Albino who holds a master’s degree in mental health counseling and a master’s degree in crime and justice studies. She is a licensed mental health counselor, and previously worked as a JDP police co-responder clinician at Boston Medical Center through the Boston Police Department where she provided crisis services to children and adults. She is bilingual in English and Spanish. 
Holliston Police Chief Matthew Stone introduced Albino at a meeting of the Select Board on Jan. 13. 
“Having the clinician available to the three departments, [we’re] able to provide an immediate response for a person in crisis; we can often help to de-escalate issues,” said Stone. “Sometimes we can solve the issue with law enforcement strategies but sometimes having a clinician on hand with us helps to facilitate that.” 
Stone said sometimes law enforcement or the criminal justice system is not the way to solve a problem. He said the HPD has noticed a reduction in recurring calls related to mental health issues. “So instead of going to the same mental health-related call over and over and over again, and ‘putting a Band-Aid on it,’ our clinician can help us find hopefully some behavioral services that the person can benefit from.” 
Albino told the board she is excited to be in Holliston. 
“As the Chief said, I have been in this role before; I’ve worked the past seven years for Boston Medical Center, contracted through Boston Police. I’ve been working for Boston Police for quite some time in a similar role and working with their negotiator team, escalation, sections, working with their intelligence center [Boston Regional Intelligence Center] helping them with interviews and consults as well. I’m excited to be out here now and helping to build this program back up for the communities.” 
Select Board Chair Tina Hein said, “I think we’re incredibly lucky to have you serving in our region with those experiences.” 
Stone said, “We hired Lyan because of her expertise and her experience. The goal, long term, is to create a supervisor position [Lyan would be the supervisor] and then bring on a second clinician because the data that we have between the three communities shows we’re servicing well over 30 – 40,000 residents, between the three communities, so the need for one clinician, if you think how many mental health related calls and services that are going on, one person is not enough.” 
The additional position would also be funded by a DPH grant, and would likely be an employee of another town within the partnership. 
Stone said Albino can provide much-needed follow-up and additional support related to mental health issues. She will also closely track relevant statistics. 
Stone said, “We go to a call, we clear a call, then we go to another call; there’s no follow-up because us, as police officers, aren’t trained in that type of behavioral health.”
The JDP clinician will respond with a police officer to “any type of call that is mental health related, that we think an arrest or a citation or a summons to court would maybe not be the correct route to take – right now, those are our only three options to take.” Stone said having a mental health clinician on staff as a fourth option will be beneficial to the community. 
Jail Diversion Program Clinician job description
According to the town’s website, “The JDP Co-Response Clinician will deliver overall clinical services alongside police personnel in the communities of Holliston, Hopkinton and Sherborn. The Co-Response Clinician will provide crisis response to individuals in need to offer on-scene de-escalation, support, assessment of mental status, social functioning and determine the level of risk to self and others. Clinician services will include co-response with police to dispatched calls, ride-along on patrols, follow-up visits to identified persons after a law enforcement encounter, assessment of persons, provision of information and referral, applicable data-related tasks, coordination of Jail/Arrest Diversion Program activities among all participating communities and participation in community & statewide forums that relate to the Jail/Arrest Diversion Program’s mission.”