SEVEN THINGS TO KNOW THIS WEEK

1. Voters favor sending health care workers, not armed police officers, to address mental health crises per a new poll from the National Alliance on Mental Illness:

76% of voters prefer a response led by mental health professionals (as opposed to police officers) when someone is having a mental health or suicide crisis.

64% of voters agreed with the statement—“I would be afraid the police may hurt my loved one or me while responding to a mental health crisis.”

86% of voters agree with the statement—“By building and providing mental health services across the country, we can prevent people from cycling in and out of emergency rooms, arrests, incarceration, and homelessness.”

2. Is it safe to call 911 when the person with a mental health crisis is a Black child?

In Slate’s State of Mind, Joshua Branch writes, “One of the earliest memories from my childhood is of watching my sister, Julie, attempt to die by suicide during a mental health crisis.” Police responded to calls for Julie “more than 10 times in a little under a year” as her mental health worsened, but she “was never arrested, and no charges were ever filed.” Branch, whose father was an NYPD officer, and believes that fact curried special favor, acknowledges that “officers giving such grace is almost unheard-of in communities of color.” Indeed,

“Police relationships with communities of color are often fraught. Throw mental illness into the mix and things are even worse. People experiencing a mental health crisis are 16 times more likely to be met with deadly force and make up half of police fatalities. This, of course, complicated things for my parents. No one ever wants to call crisis hotlines or police on their child. Doubly so if that mentally ill child is a person of color in a largely white community.”

In a lengthy new essay, three medical school professors at the University of Washington School of Medicine urge leaders to address “a significant lack of unarmed mobile crisis response across the country” as a step on the pathway to making 911 safer for Black youth:

“The current standard of care is for mental health professionals to advise patients and families to call 911 in case of an acute life-threatening psychiatric emergency, such as suicidal ideation or aggressive behavior … [However,] “ultimately, a 911 call may not be the safest option for mental health crises, especially for Black youth … [P]olice are more likely to be dispatched to psychiatric emergencies than mental health professionals or EMS, making law enforcement the de facto gatekeepers to safety-net mental health services … [Yet,] [y]oung Black males were found to be 9 times more likely than other Americans to be killed by police … [and] [i]ndividuals of any race diagnosed with a severe mental illness account for an estimated 25–50% of fatal police encounters…”

3. “It is critical that the 911 system move away from police as the default response.” That’s a recommendation in a new report from the University of Chicago Health Lab on transforming 911 services:

“Across America, at least 240 million calls are made to 911 each year … Police are the default for most 911 systems nationally, even though more than 75% of 911 calls for service dispatched to the police are not related to public safety threats that obviously merit a law enforcement response … [That’s because] nationwide 911 professionals do not have a diverse ecosystem of responses to deploy … [Thus, governments must] [e]nable 911 professionals to transfer calls to hotlines or virtual and on-scene responders skilled in managing a host of community needs, including homelessness, mental health crises, substance use crisis, and domestic violence … Instituting additional response options simultaneously free up law enforcement officers’ time so that they can redirect their efforts where they can be most impactful, and it provides appropriate responses for all community members, including those who face crises but who won’t call 911 for fear that doing so could precipitate an uncomfortable, distressing, or even lethal encounter with law enforcement.”

4. Just Launched:

Durham's new crisis response program launched this week and is “sending responders specifically trained to answer 911 calls for those having a mental health crisis,” WRAL’s Monica Casey reported. “The program has three parts. The Crisis Call Diversion pilot starts on Tuesday. Mental health clinicians will become part of Durham's 911 call center. If a person or family member calls 911 for help with a mental health crisis, they can speak with a person who is specifically trained for these situations. The Community Response Team will hit the streets on Wednesday. Care Navigators, who connect people with help they need after the initial contact, start their work on Thursday.”

5. Progress Report:

5,700 calls in ATX. That’s how many mental health crisis calls in 2021 were handled by Austin’s “crisis clinicians, who can also deploy [the city’s] Mobile Crisis Outreach Team,” Stephanie Kanowitz reported for Government Executive’s GCN this week.
“Mental Health Response Teams Yield Better Outcomes Than Police In NYC, Data Shows.” That’s the title of an article from NPR’s Deepa Shivaram on a new report detailing NYC’s Behavioral Health Emergency Assistance Response Division’s first month of operation.