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Interventionist in Jacksonville, Florida
Jacksonville families facing addiction or a psychiatric crisis.
One consolidated city, one county clerk, one plan. We help Duval County families decide between a prepared conversation and a court petition, then carry whichever path fits through to admission.
Jacksonville is unusual among American cities: since October 1, 1968, the city and Duval County have operated as a single consolidated government, according to the City of Jacksonville. Only Atlantic Beach, Neptune Beach, Jacksonville Beach and Baldwin stayed separate. For a family in crisis, that simplicity is useful.
Whether your brother lives in Arlington, Mandarin or a beach town, a Marchman or Baker Act petition for a Duval resident goes to the same clerk’s office downtown. We are based in Austin, Texas, start planning by phone and video the day you call, and fly in for the intervention itself.
Families who reach us from Northeast Florida
Spouses at NAS Jacksonville or Mayport whose partner’s drinking is now a career risk. Parents in Ponte Vedra or Orange Park whose adult child has been in and out of detox. Brothers and sisters in other states trying to steer help toward someone in Duval County. Each needs a different plan, and nobody should be handed a program’s sales pitch dressed as advice.
Our work in Jacksonville
Three services, one accountable team.
Substance use intervention
Opioids, alcohol, cocaine, methamphetamine. We prepare everyone who will speak, confirm a bed in advance, and make the yes easy to act on that same day.
Explore →02Psychiatric crisis intervention
Psychosis, mania, a depression that has turned dangerous, a loved one who insists nothing is wrong. Slower pacing, a safety plan, and a clear read on Florida’s legal options.
Explore →03Independent placement
We compare programs in Northeast Florida and beyond on clinical fit, license status and real cost. Nobody pays us for a referral, so no one has bought a say in the choice.
Explore →What the first week looks like for a Jacksonville family
The first call is usually a long one. Hannah Gibson, our co-founder and case manager, asks what has been used and for how long, which hospitals have already seen your loved one, who in the family still gets a phone call returned, and who has stopped getting one. Matt Gibson, a Certified Interventionist (CAI), reads that history and recommends an approach: an invitational meeting, a structured intervention, or, when safety demands it, a frank talk about the court process.
Coaching happens over video in the following days. Each person drafts a short letter, and we edit it until it says what is true without reopening old fights. Meanwhile we verify the program, call its clinical director, check the insurance numbers, and book the travel. When Matt arrives at JAX, the family has rehearsed, the bed is held, and the drive or flight to treatment is already arranged.
Our fee is flat and written down before you agree to anything. Matt’s travel is billed at what it actually costs, and an escort through sober transport is quoted on its own when one is needed.
Filing a Marchman Act petition in Duval County
The clerk accepts the paper. The judge decides whether the facts meet the law.
Florida’s Marchman Act lets a family ask a court to order assessment and treatment for someone whose substance use has taken away their self-control. The criteria in s. 397.675, Florida Statutes require good faith reason to believe the person is substance abuse impaired, has lost the power of self-control over use, and either cannot appreciate the need for care or faces a real threat of harm. Since the 2024 rewrite, the petition can come from a spouse, guardian, any relative, a service provider, or a single adult with direct personal knowledge of the impairment and treatment history. Older guides still say three adults are needed; the current statute does not.
In Jacksonville, the Duval County Clerk’s Mental Health Department handles intake at 501 West Adams Street, Room 2409, phone (904) 255-1986. The clerk’s page says petitions are accepted Monday through Friday from 8 AM to 4 PM, that you should bring your own photo ID along with your loved one’s date of birth and current address, and that the person must be a Duval County resident. The page still cites the pre-2024 section numbers, so read it for logistics and the statute for the law. Under s. 397.681 there is no filing fee.
The court must schedule a hearing within 10 court working days (s. 397.68151). If the petition describes a true emergency, a judge can issue an ex parte order that sends law enforcement to bring your loved one to a licensed provider for up to 72 hours of observation (s. 397.6818). A treatment order, if granted, may last up to 90 days (s. 397.697). Clay and Nassau share the Fourth Judicial Circuit with Duval, but a petition belongs in the county where the person is located, so a son in Orange Park goes through the Clay County clerk. Our Florida Marchman Act guide covers the full sequence.
When the problem is mental illness rather than drugs or alcohol, Florida’s Baker Act applies. An involuntary examination can begin three ways under s. 394.463: a judge’s ex parte order based on sworn testimony, a law enforcement officer, or a certificate from a physician, psychologist, psychiatric nurse or licensed counselor who saw the person within the previous 48 hours. The examination period runs up to 72 hours from arrival at the receiving facility. An ex parte order with no stated limit stays valid for 7 days after the judge signs it.
The Duval clerk lists two places where ex parte examinations are typically done: the Mental Health Resource Center at 11820 Beach Boulevard and the Mental Health Center of Jacksonville at 3333 W. 20th Street, with the person usually going to the closest receiving facility that has a bed. Families cannot file the next step themselves. A petition for involuntary inpatient placement or outpatient services under s. 394.467 comes only from a facility administrator or a provider treating the person, and an order can run up to 6 months. Our Florida mental health intervention page explains how we plan around those limits.
The Baker Act, from a Jacksonville kitchen table
Safety comes before planning
In danger tonight? Call 911.
An overdose, a threat of suicide, a weapon in the house: those are emergencies, and an intervention is not the tool for them. Call 911. For a mental health or substance use crisis that needs a voice right now, call or text 988. We will be here once everyone is safe.
Crisis help in Duval County, by name
Florida’s 988 Lifeline is answered by crisis counselors in Florida who can send a Mobile Response Team, according to the Department of Children and Families. In Duval County that team is run by Child Guidance Center, whose Duval County Mobile Response Team offers crisis counseling to all ages through a 24/7 Crisis Hotline at (904) 982-4911. DCF’s county directory also lists Florida Assertive Community Treatment teams run by the Mental Health Resource Center in north and south Jacksonville for adults with serious mental illness.
Publicly funded behavioral health care across Northeast Florida is coordinated by Lutheran Services Florida, the DCF managing entity for Duval, Clay, Nassau, St. Johns, Baker and eighteen other North and Central Florida counties, per DCF’s managing entity contact list. If your loved one has no insurance, that system is where state-funded detox and crisis beds come from, and it shapes what a realistic plan looks like.
Fentanyl, the numbers, and choosing a program
Florida Department of Health data put Duval County at 299 drug poisoning deaths in 2024, an age-adjusted rate of 28.1 per 100,000 residents, against 21.3 statewide (FLHealthCHARTS). That is a real improvement on 441 deaths in 2023, and it still means a Jacksonville family should treat opioid use as urgent. Our family guide to fentanyl and opioids covers naloxone, withdrawal and what to watch for.
Before we suggest any program, we confirm its substance use license on the DCF provider licensing search, and for psychiatric units we check AHCA’s FloridaHealthFinder. Sober homes that call themselves certified should appear with the Florida Association of Recovery Residences at farronline.org, the credentialing body DCF approved under s. 397.487. And because Florida’s Patient Brokering Act makes paying or taking kickbacks for patient referrals a felony, we ask hard questions of any “free” placement service. Our own answer is simple: we take nothing from programs. See how treatment navigation works.
Military households around NAS Jacksonville
Jacksonville is a Navy town, and military families face a specific trap. Military OneSource offers free non-medical counseling, but its own counseling guide says that service does not cover alcohol or substance use disorders or active suicidal thoughts, and points those cases toward TRICARE and military treatment facilities instead. Families often lose weeks learning that.
TRICARE may cover inpatient care, partial hospitalization, intensive outpatient programs, withdrawal management and medication assisted treatment when medically necessary. When we navigate for a military family, we check network status and authorization before anyone packs a bag. The NAS Jacksonville Fleet and Family Support Center, (904) 542-5745, is a good parallel resource for the spouse and children.
Jacksonville International Airport (JAX) sits on the city’s north side, and the city is where I-95 and I-10 meet, so most treatment destinations in the Southeast are a single flight or a straight drive. That matters because the hour after a yes is fragile. We choose the route that keeps your loved one calm, settle identification and medications ahead of time, and send an escort if one is wise. Our guide to interstate intervention logistics explains the details when treatment is out of state.
Closer to home, we also work with families in Gainesville to the southwest and Daytona Beach down the coast, and across the rest of Florida.
Getting from JAX to treatment
Jacksonville questions
What Duval County families ask us most.
Where do we file a Marchman Act petition in Jacksonville?
Do we need three people to sign a Marchman petition in Duval County?
Our son lives in Jacksonville Beach. Is that still Duval County?
Who answers a mental health crisis call in Duval County?
Is G3 based in Jacksonville?
Will TRICARE pay for rehab for a Navy family member?
Keep reading
More for Northeast Florida families
The next step is a conversation
You do not have to figure this out alone.
One confidential call with G3 begins it. No pressure, no judgment, just a path forward.