Three Things To Read This Week
1. Cities Turning To Crisis Stabilization Centers “Because Too Many People In Our Courts And Jails Are There Not Because They’re Criminals, But Because They’re In Crisis.”
In Kimball County, Nebraska, Former Hospital To Be “Turned Into Crisis Stabilization And Medically Monitored Detox Center.” For News Channel Nebraska, Kristi Shields reports on the development of a new $3.88 million renovation of a former hospital in the county into a “state-of-the-art behavioral health and substance use treatment facility” that will “provide 24/7 services, including behavioral health crisis stabilization, withdrawal management, mobile crisis response, and residential treatment.”
County Commissioner Elyse Lukassen, a champion of the new center, said in a Facebook post: “Now there’s hope for someone to see their dad get sober, for a kid to get clean, hope for a mom to get the therapy she needs to get out of postpartum depression. Hope for a domestic violence victim to find the courage and strength to walk away ... I am so proud to be a Kimball County Commissioner and a supporter of this project."
As News Channel Nebraska noted, the new facility “will coordinate with law enforcement to provide an opportunity for people to go to treatment rather than jail.” County Commissioner Rich Flores explained to the newspaper that the board “made the decision to bring this facility here because they felt that this service is needed, not only for law enforcement [relief], but for getting help for the people here who need it.”
Columbia, Missouri “Breaks Ground On New Crisis Center.” For KOMU News, Sophia Ortiz reports on a new expanded center that will provide “access to 24/7, 365-day crisis care” free-of-charge for Columbia residents that “provides an alternative to emergency rooms or jails and alleviates strain on community resources.” The facility, staffed with “a team specializing in mental health and substance use-related crises,” can treat patients in acute crises and has the capacity to provide “up to 72 hours of care compared to the 23-hour care maximum” at a smaller crisis center in the region that this will be replacing. Local leaders decided to expand to a larger facility after a city report found that even the smaller facility “is estimated to have saved the Columbia community upward of $14 million [in] hospitalization costs, jail costs, law enforcement salary and crisis center operations costs” just last year alone.
Leaders In Hamilton County, Indiana “Celebrate Opening Of Crisis Stabilization Facility.” WISH-TV News reports on “the grand opening of the new Rely Center, a 23-hour crisis stabilization facility designed to provide urgent mental health, substance use, and psychiatric care”—a “first-of-its-kind” facility in the region. The center “offers rapid triage, assessment, stabilization, and observation services, connecting patients to longer-term treatment … [and] housing, employment, and other long-term supports aimed at building healthier and more stable lives.” Steve Nation, County Councilor and retired Judge, who spearheaded the push for the new facility, explained to the news station that as a judge he saw that “too many people in our courts and jails are there not because they’re criminals, but because they’re in crisis [and this new center] offers a better way focused on treatment, not incarceration.” Other local healthcare leaders celebrated the opening of the new center for “reducing pressure on hospital emergency rooms… [and] ensuring people in crisis receive the right care at the right time.”
2. Mobile Crisis Response Teams Helping To “Reduce Strain In Police, Paramedics And Other Traditional First Responders.”
Mason City, Iowa Launches The “Community Crisis Response Team.” For KTTC, Addie McCabe reports on the new mobile crisis response team that will “help respond to 911 calls involving mental health, substance use, and emotional distress” across Cerro Gordo County. The team, composed of behavioral health experts, will provide on-site care to 911 calls for service with a “focus on de-escalation, support, and connection to services.” The team will operate from 10AM to 10PM as it launches with the expectation it will expand to 24/7 coverage.
Carl Ginapp, Cerro Gordo County Supervisor and former deputy fire chief, explained to the news station that he understands the vital role this team plays in a modern county’s public safety infrastructure: “In my previous work [at the fire department], I witnessed firsthand how individuals in crisis often lacked timely access to appropriate support…This effort will reduce strain in police, paramedics and other traditional first responders while helping individuals in crisis get the right kind of help, faster.”
Albany, New York “Introduces Mental Health-Focused First Responder Team.” For 6News, Sean Cavanaugh reports on the city’s “new initiative to address mental health crises and other non-violent quality of life issues with the introduction of the Community Advocacy Response Team” that launched last month. The team, composed of trained mental and behavioral health specialists, “can respond independently to certain 911 calls… addressing situations such as mental health crises, substance use challenges, and homelessness.” Before the launch, 911 dispatchers received training “to determine whether a call requires police or CART intervention.”
Albany Police Chief Brendan Cox, explained to the news station that there is a deep “need for a third type of first responder… ‘we need to have folks who are social workers, folks who have a lot of experience, folks who can go not in a police or a fire uniform, but can go and try to solve another issue.”In Seattle, The Community Assisted Response And Engagement Team Will “Double” In Size, City Allows “Unlimited Hiring” For Future Expansion. For KUOW, Amy Radil reports on Mayor Bruce Harrell’s “groundbreaking” expansion of the city's Community Assisted Response and Engagement team, or CARE, which will now serve “as the primary dispatch for 9-1-1 calls” related to mental and behavioral health, “a doubling [of the] crisis response team” and coverage expansion “across the entire city and nearly around the clock,” and room for “unlimited hiring” as the team may need to expand further. Seattle Police Chief Shon Barnes told the news station that “he supports the expansion of the CARE team… [because we] agree that policing alone cannot solve every challenge we have in this city.”
In Indianapolis, “Clinician-Led Mental Health Response Team Expands.” For WFYI News, Benjamin Thorp reports that city leaders have approved an expansion of the Clinician-Led Community Response team, which when launched in 2023 was isolated to downtown, but has since proven to be a valuable third branch of the public safety infrastructure of the city and will “now cover roughly 63% of the city.” When someone calls 911 in the city, “a dispatcher asks them a series of questions, including whether they are in need of support from police, EMS, or mental health services.” If mental health services are needed, the team is deployed and “sends mental health professionals instead of police officers” to “assist with people who do not necessarily need to be entangled with law enforcement because they are having a mental health crisis” instead of “flooding” local jails, “emergency rooms, [and] hospitals” with people who can instead receive immediate care from the CLCR team.
3. More Cities Embedding Mental Health Experts Into 911 Emergency Call Centers.
In Suffolk County, New York “Social Workers Will Be Embedded At [The] 911 Call Center To Help Operators With Mental Health-Related Calls For The First Time.” For Newsday, Lisa Colangelo reports that the new plan means that when someone calls 911 “in a mental health crisis, a social worker will take over the call and evaluate the situation” County Executive Edward P. Romaine explained to the newspaper that this effort “aims to get people services [and] free up officers if the situation does not warrant police intervention.” Ultimately, Romaine said, the new program “will make policing more effective, protect our police men and women that serve and ... help people who have some kind of [mental health] difficulty.”
In Seattle, 911 Call Center Is Merged With Mental Health Response Team. Last week, Mayor Bruce Harrell announced the city’s permanent shift to “combine Seattle’s 911 Center with the new Community Crisis Responder team” an “integrated model [that] pairs call-taking and dispatch with unarmed behavioral health responders, giving Seattle a new way to respond to non-violent crisis calls while preserving police and fire resources for where they are needed most.” The move means that the city is “closer to achieving the vision of three co-equal departments of first responders, and a Seattle 911 equipped to send the best first response to a call—the police and fire departments [for] physical safety and health provision; and the CARE department [for] mental and emotional health provision.”
In Vermont, 911 “Now Connects Callers To 988 For Mental Health Support.” The Waterbury Roundabout reports on the state’s move, which began last month, to connect “Vermonters directly to trained mental health counselors under a new 911-to-988 protocol” rather than how it was previously handled, through dispatching “EMS and/or police.” The new protocol—developed under a partnership between state’s Department of Mental Health, Department of Public Safety, and Enhanced 911 Board—makes “it easy for 911 call-takers to transfer calls to the 988” mental health experts, who “can provide support, develop safety plans, and link callers to local resources or emergency services if needed” and allows for dispatchers to “match the right response to the person who needs it.”
