- April 19, 2024
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Planning to be semiretired, he instead found his passion.
Wayne Grant
Staff Writer
Lamar “Sonny” Donaldson, of Ormond-by-the-Sea, said it’s sad to walk down a passageway in the county jail, and see so many mentally ill.
“That’s where they often end up,” he said.
Donaldson, a social worker at Stewart-Marchman-Act Behavioral Healthcare, said that’s why his passion is to keep them in their homes and out of crisis centers and jails.
His passion was recognized recently. He was named Volusia/Flagler’s Social Worker of the Year by the local unit of the National Association of Social Workers at its annual awards banquet on March 20 at LPGA International in Daytona Beach.
The award criteria included making a difference in advocacy for clients, social work practice, program development, research, leadership, taking risks to achieve outstanding results and other areas.
Donaldson has definite beliefs on how to help people who have mental issues that could land them in jail. They need to be visited in their homes by professionals on a regular basis, mostly to make sure they have the medication they need and know how to take it.
There was a case a couple of years ago when he.went to a clent’s home, and saw that he had a paint bucket turned upside down, and a noose hanging above it. The client said that someone on television told him to hang himself. He was schizophrenic, having audio and visual hallucinations, but no one had picked up on it in his counseling sessions.
“I was able to get him on the medications he needed,” Donaldson said.
Donaldson said FACT, Florida Assertive Community Treatment, is a program with a proven record of success. In this Florida Department of Children and Families program, medications, therapy, and crisis intervention are provided by a team of professionals, including doctors, social workers and nurses, who visit the client in their home.
“There are people all over with disorders but a small group that needs more intensive treatment,” he said. “We need to focus on these individuals.”
In his work, Donaldson uses a format similar to the FACT approach, but with less staffing.
Ivan Cosimi, CEO of SMA, agrees with Donaldson’s approach.
“We call it FACT-lite,” he said.
Both men said more resources are needed. There is only one FACT team in the Volusia/Flagler area. Cosimi said he’d like to get a team in St. Johns and Putnam counties, which are also covered by SMA, but it doesn’t look good for this year. He said Florida is ranked 49th in spending among the states for mental health.
“We’re woefully underfunded,” he said.
Donaldson felt driven to social work
Donaldson said he was an entrepreneur in Washington, D.C. for 23 years, and decided to sell off his businesses and move to Florida where he would be semiretired and get involved in social work. To prepare, he got a master’s degree in social work at Howard University. He already had a master’s degree in psychology from Pepperdine University.
He said he always felt driven to get into social work, after seeing social workers at a hospital when he was in the Marines. He said they recognized the inherent resilience and potential for growth in people.
His plan to be semiretired didn’t work out.
“There’s no such thing as part time in social work,” he said. But he says he’s happy with his decision and finds his work very rewarding.
Cosimi said Donaldson has been flexible, doing well at several different assignments, and has a very calm demeanor.
“He can relate to people at all levels,” he said. “He can talk to a judge, police, city commissioners and clients.”
SMA Behavioral Healthcare has been serving the northeast Florida community with mental health and drug treatment services for more than 50 years in Flagler, Putnam, St. Johns and Volusia counties.
Call SMA at 800-539-4228, visit smabehavioral.org or find it on Facebook at SMABehavioralHealthServices.
