Mission mayor, Dr. Danielle Gutierrez urge residents to seek care and outline local crisis response

Mayor Nori Gonzalez Garca and Dr. Danielle Gutierrez, chief medical officer at Tropical Texas Behavioral, used the City of Mission’s Behind the Mission podcast to urge residents to seek mental-health care and highlighted local crisis-response resources.

The episode, recorded during Mental Health Awareness Month, focused on barriers to care, workforce training and community-based responses. "About 50% of the population that has significant mental health needs does not get it," Dr. Gutierrez said, attributing the gap to limited awareness, stigma and cultural barriers. She called early connection with a provider "the first step in the healing process."

Dr. Gutierrez and the hosts discussed treatment acceptance, noting that psychiatric medications can be as essential as medical treatments for conditions such as bipolar disorder, schizophrenia and major depression. "Care is better done by humans," she said, adding a caution about technology: "I hope that we don't go that AI route because that's kind of scary... robots don't care, right?" She said AI tools may expand access but cannot replace the empathy and connection clinicians provide.

The podcast also addressed workforce shortages in the Rio Grande Valley. Dr. Gutierrez described Tropical Texas Behavioral’s involvement with the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (UTRGV) psychiatry residency program and said the center has trained residents who later joined local staff. She noted, however, that many new residency tracks initially serve adults and that child psychiatry training is not yet widely available locally, delaying pediatric specialist capacity.

On crisis response, Dr. Gutierrez explained the city’s co-responder approach—teams pairing a trained clinician or crisis worker with law enforcement—and a local diversion center that operates 24 hours a day but is not an inpatient psychiatric hospital. She described how officers can take someone experiencing a behavioral-health crisis to the diversion center, where staff have up to 24 hours to assess needs, reinitiate medications or link the person to outpatient care or hospitalization when clinically necessary.

To broaden outreach and education, Dr. Gutierrez said she and colleagues founded a nonprofit called Shrink Bucks, which produces blogs and school presentations and offers resources at shrinkbox.com. Councilwoman Jessica Ortega and the mayor thanked Dr. Gutierrez for the work and emphasized the need for more clinicians to remain in the Valley.

The podcast provided practical guidance for listeners: if someone you care about is struggling, take the first step to contact a provider or crisis service; early engagement can improve outcomes. The episode did not include formal votes or policy decisions. It closed with hosts encouraging continued community education and workforce development to expand access to care.