Over the years, more and more agencies have integrated police-mental health collaboration (PMHC) programs into their departments in an effort to reduce the amount of violence that often results from police responses to mental health crises.
There are a handful of essential elements involved in any type of PMHC program, which includes:
- Collaborative planning and implementation
- Program design
- Specialized training
- Call-taker and dispatcher protocols
- Stabilization/observation/disposition
- Transportation and custodial transfer
- Information exchange and confidentiality
- Treatment/support/services
- Organizational support
- Program sustainability
There are several types of PMHC programs. These include crisis intervention teams, mobile crisis teams, case management teams, the tailored approach, and co-responder teams. The co-responder team model is one of the most popular programs, often fitting many communities’ needs.
About the co-responder team model
The co-responder team model has the same ten essential elements as other PMHC models, but the way that it interacts with the community is what sets it apart.
The Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) describes the co-responder team model as a team that has both a specially trained law enforcement officer and a mental health professional, who work together to respond to mental health or substance abuse crises so they can provide resources, support, and de-escalation on-scene.
Longmont, Colorado implemented a co-responder team in their community five years ago, one that they call the CORE program, and its success continues to grow. Longmont has simultaneously been taking part in an empirical study researching the effectiveness of their co-response team, being one of the first in the country to study which components of the co-response models work and how to copy those components so that they remain effective in other communities around the nation.
Longmont’s CORE program as a model
The Crisis Outreach and Engagement (CORE) program involves a team of three professionals that are sent to each crisis call. A behavioral-health expert, a police officer, and a paramedic all arrive on the scene. The behavioral-health expert is present for behavioral needs, the police officer is present for safety, and the paramedic is present for medical problems or emergencies. Together, the CORE team de-escalates and resolves the incident by taking a slow, humanized approach rather than quickly going through the motions and moving on to the next call. The team’s goal is to solve the problem during an incident rather than assign a criminal case to an incident where it is often unnecessary. Best of all, the person in crisis is not left alone once the call is resolved. An essential component of the CORE program is following up with the person in crisis to ensure that they are in a better state than they were at the time of the call and to ensure that they are connected with the proper resources.
Longmont’s CORE success
Community members that have received services from the CORE program have reported that it makes the community “feel more like a community”, due to CORE’s humane approach of empathy and compassion. Moreover, some officials in Longmont have thanked their co-response model for a 50% decrease in suicides.
Those who received services from CORE also noted how the co-response team is invested in each person’s personal problem and demonstrates, through patient questioning and follow-up visits, a genuine interest in helping the person in crisis.
What to expect
While Longmont serves as proof that co-responder team models can produce effective, positive change in our communities, more funding is needed to allow these small response teams to function and for more research to be conducted. With prisons serving as default mental health hospitals, CORE is not a quick solution to the problem we face. Solving the problem in more communities throughout the U.S. involves “significant culture change” when it comes to police reform and proper funding for the appropriate reform to be successful.
Comments