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Newton County proclaims Mental Health Awareness Month; local advocates brief commissioners on Senate Bill 132
Summary
Newton County proclaimed May 2025 as Mental Health Awareness Month and heard a briefing from NAMI Georgia and local advocates on recently signed Senate Bill 132, which changes competency evaluation timelines for people found incompetent to stand trial.
The Newton County Board of Commissioners proclaimed May 2025 as Mental Health Awareness Month and received a presentation May 20 from NAMI Georgia and local mental-health advocates about Senate Bill 132 and youth peer education work in county schools.
Chairman Linda D. Hayes read a proclamation citing statewide and local student-survey statistics and formally declaring May 2025 as Mental Health Awareness Month in Newton County. Representatives of the Newton County Drug Free Youth Action Team joined the proclamation presentation; student Francisco Alvarado said the group is “extremely passionate about mental health as well as working towards prevention in our communities and in our schools.”
Kim Jones, executive director of NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness) Georgia, and Dr. Lakisha Izzard—identified in the meeting as a licensed professional counselor and a member of the Georgia Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Disabilities advisory commission—briefed the board on recent state legislation. Jones described Senate Bill 132 as a competence-evaluation reform that shortens timelines and aims to move people who are incompetent to stand trial more quickly into appropriate state behavioral-health custody for evaluation and, where applicable, treatment. “Providing help and not handcuffs,” Jones said, summarizing the bill’s intent.
Jones told the commissioners the law reduces the prior 120-day timeline to 45 days for certain evaluations and gives courts authority to transfer custody to the Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Disabilities. She said the change may reduce the number of people held in county jails while awaiting competency evaluation; Jones said about 808 people statewide were awaiting competency evaluations at the time she spoke. Commissioners including Mason and others praised the youth program and affirmed county interest in tackling mental health needs in schools and jails.
The presenters provided the board with packet materials and a QR code linking to bill text and additional resources; NAMI Rockdale-Newton resources were also offered as local referral points. No formal county action on state legislation was requested or taken at the meeting.
