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Interventionist in Tampa, Florida
An interventionist for Tampa families facing addiction or a mental health crisis.
Drug intervention, alcohol intervention, and help for a loved one in psychosis or mania, planned with your family and carried through to an admission that fits. Hillsborough County law, courts and crisis lines, explained in plain language.
Tampa families usually call after the same discovery: the help they found online answered fast, sounded kind, and turned out to be a sales line for one program. We work the other way around. You hire us, we plan the intervention with you, and we choose treatment on clinical fit because no facility pays us anything.
G3 is based in Austin, Texas, and flies in for the intervention itself. Preparation by phone and video can start the day you call, so most of the hard work is finished before Matt lands at TPA.
One metro, two court systems
Tampa Bay feels like one place, but the law treats it as two. Hillsborough County is the entire 13th Judicial Circuit. Pinellas, across the bay, belongs to the 6th Circuit with Pasco. A Marchman or Baker petition goes to the county where your loved one is, so a son in Brandon and a daughter in Clearwater mean two different clerks, two courthouses and two sets of local procedures.
What we do in Tampa
Three kinds of help, one team.
Drug and alcohol intervention
A rehearsed family conversation with a single plan on the table and a bed already held, so agreement can become admission within hours.
Explore →02Mental health intervention
For bipolar mania, psychosis, severe depression with suicide risk, and the person who is certain nothing is wrong. Slower, quieter, built around safety.
Explore →03Independent treatment navigation
We vet programs in Hillsborough, elsewhere in Florida, or out of state, and stay on the case until your loved one is admitted.
Explore →How a Tampa intervention comes together
It starts with one long, unhurried call. Hannah Gibson, our co-founder and case manager, asks about the substances, the past attempts at treatment, any arrests or hospital stays, and who in the family still has a voice your loved one listens to. Matt Gibson, a Certified Interventionist (CAI), reads that history and proposes an approach: a fully planned intervention, an invitational model that brings your loved one into the process, or in a few cases a recommendation to wait while we steady the family first.
Over the next several days each participant writes a short letter and rehearses it with us by video. We take out the old arguments and keep what is true and specific. Meanwhile we confirm a program that matches the clinical picture, check what your insurance will actually pay, and arrange the trip so there is no gap between a yes and an intake desk. On the day, Matt meets the family first, then guides the conversation wherever your loved one is least likely to feel trapped: a parent’s house in South Tampa, a sibling’s place in Riverview, a quiet room nobody associates with past fights.
You receive a flat fee in writing before you commit. Travel is billed at actual cost and sober transport is quoted separately. Matt and Hannah are both in long-term recovery, which is why we take the family’s healing as seriously as the admission.
The Marchman Act in Hillsborough County
No filing fee. A hearing within 10 court working days.
Florida’s Marchman Act lets a family ask a court to order assessment and treatment for someone who has lost control of drug or alcohol use. The criteria in s. 397.675, Florida Statutes require more than refusal: the person must have lost self-control over substance use and either be unable to appreciate the need for care or face a real threat of harm. Since the 2024 rewrite, an adult respondent’s spouse, guardian, any relative, a service provider, or one adult with direct personal knowledge of the impairment may petition (s. 397.68112).
In Tampa that petition goes to the Hillsborough Clerk’s mental health section at the George Edgecomb Courthouse, 800 East Twiggs Street, Room 205, open weekdays 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. The Clerk’s mental health brochure lists 813-276-8100 (say “Mental Health,” then “Agent”), confirms there are no court fees to file, says every case is set for court within 10 business days, and notes that a request for an ex parte order is reviewed within 24 hours. The brochure also says the respondent must reside in Hillsborough County, which is the first thing we check when a family’s loved one has been couch-surfing across the bay.
If the judge orders treatment, it can last up to 90 days (s. 397.697), and the court keeps jurisdiction to monitor compliance. The 13th Circuit also runs a Marchman Act Drug Treatment Court (Division Z, Courthouse Annex). Our full Florida Marchman Act guide covers the process step by step.
The Baker Act covers mental illness rather than addiction. Under s. 394.463, an involuntary examination can begin three ways: a law enforcement officer, a qualified professional’s certificate, or an ex parte order from a judge based on sworn testimony. The examination lasts up to 72 hours from arrival at a receiving facility, after which the person is released, agrees to stay, or the facility files for involuntary services.
Families in Hillsborough use the third route through the same Room 205 desk. According to the Clerk, anyone with firsthand knowledge of the dangerous behavior may file a Petition for Ex Parte Order for Involuntary Examination, need not be related, must bring photo ID, and pays nothing. There is no hearing: the judge decides on the papers. The brochure is explicit that this petition is not for substance abuse and cannot extend a hold that is already running.
What a family cannot do is file the longer petition for involuntary inpatient placement or outpatient services. Under s. 394.467 only a facility administrator or a treating provider may file it, and an order can run up to six months. When a loved one is cycling through emergency rooms, our Florida mental health intervention work focuses on what happens before and after those 72 hours.
Baker Act petitions from Tampa
If someone is in danger now
Call 911 first. The intervention can wait a day.
An overdose, a threat of suicide, or violence is a medical emergency, not a family meeting. Call 911. For a mental health or substance use crisis, call or text 988 at any hour. Then call us once everyone is safe.
Crisis help in Hillsborough, by its official names
The Crisis Center of Tampa Bay answers 211 in Hillsborough County 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, for community resources and emotional support, and the county lists it among local mental health resources. Florida’s 988 line is answered by Florida-based counselors who can send a Mobile Response Team in person or by telehealth (DCF).
In Hillsborough, Ibis Healthcare, formed by bringing together Gracepoint Wellness and COVE Behavioral Health, publishes its Mobile Crisis Response Team at 813-272-2958 and runs adult and children’s crisis care in Tampa. Publicly funded behavioral health care in the county is coordinated by Central Florida Behavioral Health Network, the DCF managing entity for Hillsborough and 13 other west and southwest Florida counties. None of these replaces an intervention, and an intervention never replaces them.
What the numbers say, and how we sort Tampa’s programs
Florida Department of Health death certificate data counts 329 drug poisoning deaths among Hillsborough residents in 2024, an age-adjusted rate of 20.1 per 100,000, down from 479 deaths in 2023 (FLHealthCHARTS). That is real progress, and it is still close to one death a day in a single county. Waiting for rock bottom is not a plan when fentanyl is in the supply.
Before we suggest any program we check its license. Substance use providers answer to the Department of Children and Families, whose licensing and designation search is public; crisis units and residential mental health programs are licensed by AHCA, searchable on FloridaHealthFinder. Sober homes can be certified through FARR, and Florida’s Patient Brokering Act makes paying or taking money for patient referrals a felony. Then we ask the questions a license cannot answer: who leads clinical care, how detox is handled, and what discharge looks like. Our checklist for choosing a treatment center is a good place to start.
TPA, I-275 and I-4: getting to care
Tampa International Airport (TPA) is the practical gateway for Matt and for family members flying in from other states. When treatment is outside Florida, we book flights around your loved one’s state of mind, not the cheapest fare, and an escort from our sober transport team stays with them from the front door to admission. Our guide to interstate intervention logistics covers identification, medication and timing.
On the ground, I-275 links downtown Tampa with St. Petersburg, I-4 runs east toward Lakeland and Orlando, and I-75 carries families north and south along the Gulf Coast. Those corridors matter when a program in Pasco or Polk County is the right fit, or when part of the family is driving in for the day. If your loved one lives across the bay, our St. Petersburg page covers Pinellas County’s separate court process.
Questions from Tampa families
What Tampa families ask us first.
Where do we file a Marchman Act petition in Tampa?
Our son lives in St. Petersburg but we live in Tampa. Which court handles it?
Can a family member start a Baker Act in Hillsborough County?
Who answers a mental health crisis call in Hillsborough?
Is G3 based in Tampa?
What does a Tampa intervention cost?
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.