Every day, Stacey Waites wears two hats.

As director of the Warren County holding facility, she is responsible for monitoring and ensuring people undergoing court-ordered evaluation for psychiatric commitment are able to stay in a safe environment during the process.

As program director of HIV Services Inc., a nonprofit organization, she is responsible for overseeing the program’s full service clinic for HIV/AIDS patients and educating the public about the disease.

A Vicksburg native, Waites is a graduate of Warren Central High School. She has a bachelor’s degree from Mississippi College, and a master’s in social work from the University of Southern Mississippi with two years of post-graduate clinical training.

She and her husband Ronnie Ingram have a son and a daughter, and she is the daughter of former Warren County Chancery Clerk Dot McGee.

And while both positions are important to her, serving as director of the holding facility, she said, is her “main” job. She’s held the position for 20 years.

The holding facility, Waites said, was the result of a vision of the Warren County Board of Supervisors and community leaders to provide a safe, non-criminal environment for people going through the psychiatric civil commitment process.

“I’m responsible for monitoring and housing safely anyone who comes through me and has a court order that they could possibly be a danger to themselves or others. You have to have a court order to enter the holding facility.”

But her most important job as director, she said, “Is advocating and networking to get people into immediate psychiatric treatment. The holding facility is not a treatment facility. It’s basically housing while they go through the evaluation process and the court hearings and waiting for their bed at Mississippi State Hospital.”

In advocating for psychiatric patients, Waites said, her goal is to have them admitted directly to a psychiatric facility instead of having to stay in the Warren County Holding Facility.

“But there are times when that’s not possible, and that would be if they are extremely violent or extremely homicidal, or if they had no payment source for me to actually send them to a treatment center, and then they would have to be sent to the Mississippi State Hospital at Whitfield,” she said.

Waites’ experience in social work began when she finished college. She worked at Vicksburg Hospital, where she was a social services worker and provided emergency room crisis intervention.

“It’s my favorite thing I’ve ever done, outside of hospice,” she said. “Hospice is my passion. I worked providing grief counseling and social work services for patients and families. I believe 100 percent in hospice services and what it stands for.”

When she began providing mental health screening services for Warren County, Waites said patients going through the commitment process were held at the Warren County Jail.

“That was the only option to house someone going through the process. I was doing the evaluations for the court in the drunk tank in the Warren County Jail. It was inhumane and it was really sad to see that our loved ones had no other options.

“I remember an elderly lady who lost her husband and was depressed and suicidal, and I had to see her on the floor in the Warren County Jail. That kind of prompted the move toward the holding facility.”

The holding facility, she said, is never full, adding she takes the part of her job of networking and advocating for the mentally ill seriously, and tries to get patients into treatment facilities immediately and not utilize the holding facility.

“It’s a good thing to have, and I’m glad I have it. We need it, although there are times we don’t need it. But if we didn’t have it, they would be in the jail. But then it’s my goal to keep them out of the holding facility and into treatment.”

HIV Services, Waites said, “Is more than a job to me; it’s more of a service. In 1990, the city of Vicksburg applied for federal fund for communities that had a higher than average incidence of HIV and AIDS, and rural Mississippi was one of those that had a high average of HIV and AIDS population and received the grant.”

When the four-year grant expired, she said, the city, the Board of Supervisors and United Way of West Central Mississippi picked up when the grant ended and continued funding of the HIV and AIDs clinic.

“Without them, it would not have existed past the federal money, and it wouldn’t have lasted until 2018. It is still in operation.”

The program operates a clinic for area HIV/AIDS patients, and is staffed by volunteer doctors, nurses, laboratory technicians and other workers to provide free medical help to patients who need it.

But its biggest job, Waites said, is educating the public about the disease.

“Education is a big portion of what I try to focus on with HIV services,” she said. “I will talk to anybody, any group, anytime anywhere. If anybody will listen, I’ll talk. I just believe that education is the key to prevention.”

She said the public’s attitude about the disease has changed over the years.

“When the disease first hit, we were very busy, and we spent every day somewhere educating.

“People wanted to listen, people wanted to hear, people were concerned, people were wanting to spread the word, get the word out, then we went through a period about 10 years where the media didn’t talk about it,” Waites said.

“Teenagers aren’t getting the constant education that they need; the awareness that it is out there. It is in our community, it is here just like everywhere else; we’re no different than anywhere else and I do feel that in recent years that people are not getting as much education and knowledge as they once did. I have to beg to get into see groups and talk to groups.”

Whereas before, there wasn’t enough time in the day to meet all the requests for programs, she said

“Now people almost believe that it doesn’t exist anymore, and it’s on the rise; we know it’s on the rise, and because it’s on the rise, we know education has fallen short. If the public is educated, it should be falling instead of rising,” Waites said.

Waites said she plans to keep working at both jobs and filling the roles they require.

“I have two prayers I say every morning, one from Galatians 6:9 and from Hebrews 13:16,” Waites said. “I’m not going anywhere; it’s part of my life. I do it 24/7; I live it. I love it.”