Carter honored for helping those facing a crisis

Working in the world of crisis intervention means that your best work is often done somewhat anonymously. People reach out in the middle of fear, grief, confusion, or chaos. A crisis intervention specialist has to calm the situation, help the client regain their footing, and get them moving forward again.

It’s just another day for the CIT (Crisis Intervention Team), which is why MERIT Court Coordinator Joel Carter, who works in Mount Vernon Municipal Court’s Probation Department, found the news hard to believe. Carter had been chosen as the 2026 Knox County CIT Officer of the Year by Mental Health and Recovery for Licking and Knox Counties. It is given out for, "extraordinary service and dedication to our community."

Carter received the honor at the start of court session on Wednesday, May 13. Presenting Carter with the honor were Matthew Buckdrucker from the Alcohol and Drug Freedom Center, and Daniel Cuciak, Clinical Director of Mental Health and Recovery for Licking and Knox Counties.

"I was really surprised when they came at first to tell me,” said Carter. “I thought they were messing with me. I've been working in Mount Vernon for 10 years, doing specialized dockets in probation. So, I've been around CIT (Crisis Intervention Teams) and have been working with it for years. I totally believe in the CIT program itself, so I'm just honored."

Aside from Mental Health and Recovery and The Freedon Center, representatives from several area agencies were on hand including: Centerpoint Community Resources, Knox Recovery, Knox County Public Defender, Law Director for the City of Mount Vernon, BHP, and others.

All of these groups and agencies regularly attend the MERIT Court and Mental Health Court sessions. They are there as more than spectators or cheerleaders. They are there to support their clients.

“I think the MERIT court is a unique program, just purely because of the community collaboration that we have, and the fact that we have four social workers in the probation department” said Carter. “We have a very case management-like approach to dealing with offenders. It's unusual to have, even one, social worker in a probation department and we are blessed to have the four."

Having all of these people, from all of these different agencies, working together creates a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts.

"Well, it's huge for the community,” said Carter. “It helps you accentuate all the different resources that each agency has, but by combining them and putting them all together, it allows us to path a different provision of service for different offenders and individuals in the community. This creates a very robust community linkage program. Knox County, for as small as it may be, is very rich in resources, but they're very spread out. Groups coming together like this, help to consolidate, and bring it together, so it's not so spread out.”

After congratulating Carter, Judge John Thatcher said the following, "I've been doing criminal justice in this county for 30 years. As an assistant prosecutor, county prosecutor, and a judge. I can tell you based on experience that we are doing probation a different way in this court, than has ever been done in this county. By different, I mean effective. What we are doing is creating an atmosphere that makes probation into a place where people want to come. Not only did they want to come here, but they like the people in the probation department. They want to please them and they want to succeed and do what we want them to do, which is the real goal here.”

While it is difficult to measure happiness, Thatcher can see how the collaborative approach is making real, measurable change.

“If we can get these folks rehabilitated, they're not only going to stop committing more crimes, but they will also not be creating more crime victims. That will also save money, which is a nice little side benefit, because instead of prosecuting somebody 12 or 24 times, maybe we've cut them off at the second or third passing. That wouldn't happen if the people on probation didn't want to come here or didn't want to meet with their probation officers. When they like the people they're working with, they are more likely to be successful."

There currently 14 people going through Merit Court and there are 14 waiting on deck.

Currently, there are four cases on the mental health court docket. These involve moderate to severe mental health participants, that are in indefinite need of linkage with services and community resources. They are reportedly thriving in the program.

"We don't have a large number of participants," said Buckdrucker. "We have several on the bubble coming up. I'm very grateful to hear the feedback that we are getting from them. Things have never been better in their life before now. They can just come in here and they have a family. We're not doubting them or making them feel belittled because they have a mental illness. I would like to be serving our severely mentally ill, but they are just not appropriate in a courtroom setting. We tried to link them up for services, but most of them who are severely mentally ill — not that they can't get a little bit better – but they're just not going to be at that kind of level with us, to be able to participate. I think the folks that we have in our courtroom now are great.”

The next order of business was for Carter to read out the agenda, where the lead item was that MERIT Court and the mental health court, have maintained a 70% recidivism and relapse rate.

"We've had a few fallen off, but we've had enough graduates, who have gone through, to maintain that 70%, which is double the national average,” said Carter. “We are not cherrypicking the best of the best, when it comes to the specialized dockets. In fact, we are looking to the bottom of the barrel. We're looking for some who really needed the help, and may or may not want the help. We will bring the horse to water and we will stand there with the horse for a really long time to get them to drink, but it seems to be working. The MERIT court has been an existence for 10 years and we're up for recertification this coming December. We are currently working on that and revising the program, which is something we do on a regular basis.”