Youth Crisis Response Team advocates for youth

For Larimer County Sheriff’s Deputy Brendan Solano and licensed clinical social worker Maryann Ramos Flynn, each day they spend working as co-responders in Thompson School District is unpredictable, but they all provide a unique opportunity to advocate for youth.

Providing support for the approximately 15,000 students in TSD requires the work of hundreds of staff members, including the collaboration of people with all different areas of expertise. TSD’s inaugural co-responder team is one of the best examples of how effective that cooperative work can be.

As a sheriff’s deputy, Brendan has worked in schools as a school resource officer, and is trained in working with students who are struggling with mental health issues. Maryann works for SummitStone Health Partners, and has spent most of her career working with young people.

Since last November, Brendan and Maryann have been TSD’s first co-responder team, handling crisis situations in our schools. The two contract with the school district through a program designed to help students in need of mental health support. While Brendan is able to address the law enforcement aspects that sometimes arise with more serious incidents, Maryann provides support as a mental health professional.

“Our biggest success is to be advocates for students,” Maryann explains. “We are unique in that co-response is a relatively new program in Colorado. Kids have always deserved this service, and now TSD is a leader in saying how much they care about kids. They are addressing it by providing this service to their kids.”

In addition to providing schools with law enforcement support, Brendan and Maryann also respond to students in crisis and help provide families with care, including visiting families’ homes, and helping students and their families secure assistance through more community resources.

“Our primary focus isn’t the law enforcement–our SROs take care of that. We’re more focused on continuing care,” Brendan says.

Maryann agrees that the goal is to connect students to whatever help they need and assist families in best supporting their children.

“Our goal is to be able to have kids be in school safely and function at a healthy level so they can be productive members of society,” Maryann says. “That’s been my greatest joy of this job, getting information into families’ hands so they can continue to do the good work of caring for their family.

Colorado needs to support their youth.”