Phil Andrews is the Director of Crime Prevention Initiatives for the Montgomery County State’s Attorney’s Office. Prior to this position, he served on the Montgomery County Council for 16 years. Montgomery County has too many mental health prisoners held for minor crimes. For the last 10 years there has been a Mental Health Court with a mission to divert mental health potential prisoners to treatment centers. The program has reduced the number of mental health shootings. Another effort is to reduce Middle School truancy. Mental health patients are targets for scams

GIFTED HANDS was written in 1990 when Dr. Ben Carson was a world renown pediatric neurosurgeon at age 39 and was reprinted many times and made into a movie. His mother had 23 siblings and was
married at age 13 to a 28 year old part time preacher. They moved from Tennessee to work in a Detroit GM plant. When Ben was 8, His mother divorced his father because he had a second family. His mother refused to be a victim on welfare and had 2 or 3 concurrent jobs. At age 10 Ben’s mother insisted he read 2 books a week. write a book report, and learn his multiplication tables to 12 x 12. In a year he went from last to first in his class. His drive to excel propelled him to be a world renown pediatric neurosurgeon at the age of 33.