Behavioral Health Agency - had 20 years’ experience, had
relationships with folks before this operation - noted relationships and
gaining trust is important. Police do email referrals. Requires multiple
visits to establish relationships with clients to gain trust; have had
success stories getting folks into drug rehab and linked to social case
workers for follow-ups. Focus on safety, said she has a sense of her
situation and safety, wears bullet proof vest.
Q and A: 30 sworn officers; all officers have basic CIT training, some
have advanced CIT training, program needs to develop organically with
stakeholders to develop trust. Noted a lot of the calls they get have a
mental health and substance abuse nexis, police recognize need for
follow-up. County dispatches, county doesn’t allow CR to have a police
radio, addressing this issue. Montgomery County also has a CIS - they
have one ambulance and a few workers - long response time because
of limited resources, overwhelmed.
2. Christopher T. Dohey, Co-responder Bucks County Program
(program overview, lessons learned, rationale, planning, evaluation,
costs)
Bucks County has a co-responder program, 911 call can be directed
to a co-responder. Focus on crisis intervention, mental health, and
substance abuse referrals. Program developed in early 2020 to deal
with needs in the community; coresponders are county employees -
county pays salary for two years, after which the police depts pick up
the salaries based on their approval, multiple police depts have bought
in. Reduce the call volume and repeat calls of departments. CR have
radios and cars; go out on own calls but do not ride with police. Most
responses are referrals - police note mental health/substance
abuse/children/youth issues. Officers bought in to program over-time.
Chris works with 9 police departments that all support the program.
Police Chiefs are part of entire process from hiring, interview and
deployment. Dr. Griffith (?) - Kutztown U., has been evaluating
program from the data that is collected - results have been successful
based on program data and police surveys, have won awards based
on program. Note 24% of calls were frequent flyers - reduced to 2%
with cr responses.
3. Pinebrook (comments on two presentations, case worker
experiences similar to
tools)
co-response, areas for growth, evaluation
Pinebrook Reps: Program was piloted through Allentown PD as a result
of a grant to the county; don’t have an official HUB program but they