Modern Healthcare source article | Comments courtesy of Matt Zavadsky
This is an area for a logical police/EMS/Community Health Paramedic partnerships...
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Sending specialists to handle mental health crises, not police officers
November 28, 2020
STEVEN ROSS JOHNSON
https://www.modernhealthcare.com/safety-quality/sending-specialists-handle-mental-health-crises-not-police-officers
The recent killing of Walter Wallace Jr. by Philadelphia police underscores long-standing concerns about asking police officers to deal with people experiencing a mental health crisis.
The 27-year-old was reportedly wielding a knife when he was shot and killed by officers Oct. 27. Family members claimed they called for an ambulance to get Wallace help, but instead the police came, according to news reports.
Wallace’s death came shortly after Philadelphia unveiled a program in early October designed to handle such situations. Behavioral healthcare specialists will work alongside police dispatchers to determine the appropriate response to calls about a person having a mental health emergency.
The program apparently wasn’t fully implemented in time to address Wallace’s situation. A pilot phase began in late September, according to representatives from the Philadelphia Department of Behavioral Health and Intellectual Disability Services. The agency is partnering with the Police Department to embed a behavioral health navigator in the police 911 radio room for the program’s second phase, which will dispatch co-response teams when needed; it isn’t expected to begin until early 2021.
A spokeswoman for the city agency was unable to comment because of an ongoing investigation into the matter. But it’s clear the circumstances of Wallace’s death speak to a broader problem many communities face: the criminal justice system is the de facto primary responder for handling mental health.
“When you rely on law enforcement to respond to a situation, they’re looking at the situation through a safety lens and interpreting behaviors as potential threats, and then they respond accordingly,” said Angela Kimball, national director for advocacy and public policy at the National Alliance on Mental Illness.
To address the issue, a growing number of police departments have formed crisis intervention teams, which are sent instead of regular patrol officers to potentially volatile situations. The number of police departments that have added crisis intervention team programs has soared over the past decade from 400 in 2008 to more than 2,700 by 2019.
Kimball hopes to see more investment in crisis intervention alternatives as public sentiment on law enforcement’s role in responding to mental health emergencies evolves. “It defies logic why this has not happened” before, Kimball said. “It is far easier to maintain the status quo and complain about it than to change your systems.”
As the COVID-19 pandemic exacerbates anxiety and depression, 911 calls for those experiencing a mental health or a substance use disorder crisis are only expected to rise.
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