Mental Health & Community Wellness
Building a Healthier, More Connected Community
My commitment to mental health advocacy began while helping a family member navigate serious mental health challenges. That experience gave me firsthand insight into both the strengths and gaps in our mental health system and inspired a lasting commitment to helping individuals and families find support before they reach a crisis.
Mental health touches every part of our community. It affects public safety, education, housing stability, our workforce, families, and our overall quality of life.
While Ventura County is responsible for providing many behavioral health services, I believe the City of Camarillo can play an important role in bringing people together, strengthening partnerships, connecting residents with resources, and supporting prevention and early intervention.
For me, building a healthier community means looking not only at how we respond when someone is in crisis, but also at what we can do before the crisis occurs.
Together, we can strengthen mental wellness by:
Strengthening partnerships between the City, Ventura County, healthcare providers, schools, nonprofits, businesses, public safety, and community organizations.
Making information about existing mental health and family resources easier for residents to find and understand.
Supporting programs that promote prevention, mental wellness, resilience, recovery, and family education for residents of all ages.
Encouraging collaboration among public safety, healthcare, and behavioral health professionals when responding to mental health crises.
Supporting community spaces, programs, and activities that reduce isolation, strengthen relationships, and foster a greater sense of belonging.
A Better Option During a Mental Health Crisis
In conversations with the Camarillo Police Department, I learned about their interest in a crisis-stabilization model similar to programs that have been used successfully in other communities.
These facilities can provide a safe place where a person experiencing a behavioral health crisis can rest, eat, shower, and receive observation and assessment from trained professionals.
That period of stabilization can give professionals an opportunity to better determine what level of care a person needs. Some individuals may need hospitalization or meet the criteria for an involuntary psychiatric hold. In other situations, sleep, stabilization, assessment, and appropriate support may lead professionals to determine that a different level of care is more appropriate.
The goal is not to avoid necessary treatment. The goal is to help get each person to the appropriate level of care.
It can also give law enforcement, families, and first responders another option for helping someone in crisis rather than relying primarily on an emergency department, jail, or psychiatric hospitalization.
I believe the Camarillo Police Department's interest in this approach deserves serious consideration. As a councilmember, I would support bringing together law enforcement, Ventura County Behavioral Health, healthcare providers, and other community partners to explore whether this type of crisis-stabilization model could benefit Camarillo.
My Long-Term Vision
One of my own long-term goals is to bring community partners together to explore the creation of a Community Mental Wellness Center in Camarillo.
I envision a welcoming community hub where residents could find wellness education, support groups, family resources, peer programs, workshops, community activities, and connections to existing services in one location.
The goal would not be to duplicate the work of Ventura County or existing healthcare providers. It would be to help connect the pieces.
A parent trying to help a child, a family caring for someone with serious mental illness, a veteran looking for support, a senior experiencing isolation, or a resident who simply does not know where to begin should have a place in their own community where they can walk in and be pointed in the right direction.
Creating something like this would require collaboration among the City, Ventura County, healthcare providers, nonprofit organizations, educators, businesses, and community members. A City Council cannot create a facility like this alone, but it can bring people to the table, help identify opportunities, explore partnerships and funding, and support a shared vision.
Mental wellness is part of community wellness.
My goal is a Camarillo where people are connected before they become isolated, families know where to turn before they become overwhelmed, and residents have access to support before a difficult situation becomes a crisis.
I think this is substantially stronger than the original because it now has three layers: prevention and connection, a concrete crisis-response concept coming from local law enforcement, and your longer-term community wellness vision.
One thing I would verify before publishing: the exact name/model the Camarillo Police Department is interested in. Until we confirm whether they're specifically proposing a 23-hour crisis stabilization unit, crisis receiving center, or something similar, I would leave it as “crisis-stabilization model” exactly as written above. That prevents you from accidentally attributing details to the department that they didn't actually propose.