NEWS

COPS, CLINICIANS, CO-RESPONSE

Nashville introduces police and mental health clinician co-response model

BY HANNAH HERNER

A year-long pilot program called Partners in Care is bringing a new approach to helping people in crisis in the North and Madison precincts. Starting on June 28, mental health clinicians from Mental Health Cooperative joined Metro Nashville Police Officers in co-responding to calls — especially those involving mental health calls for service, suicidal, overdose, and psychological evaluations that come to the police. Sixteen police officers and four clinicians, plus one follow-up specialist volunteered to participate.

In the United States since 2015, there were 1,475 people killed by police who also had a mental illness, according to a database kept by The Washington Post. That’s 23 percent of all people shot and killed by police in that timeframe.

It happened here in Nashville, when a Brentwood mother called 911 for help for son Jacob, who had schizophrenia, was in possession of a gun and threatened to kill her and others. After a standoff with the Metro Nashville Police Department SWAT team, he was killed, after firing his gun twice, according to a police spokesperson. No officers were harmed in the incident.

A crisis team from Mental Health Co-Op was on the scene, but they didn’t get the chance to talk to Jacob, as officers were trying to convince him to drop his gun, first.

The partnership between the nonprofit and the police that existed on that night will become a more integrated part of the response in these two precincts.

In its first three weeks, the Partners in Care co-response unit has seen over 120 calls through emergency communication channels including hub Nashville, 911 and the police non-emergency line.

Leaders of the program say this leaves the door open for a program that works in lieu of police presence, like the CAHOOTS, a long-running program out of Eugene, Ore., that takes calls for people experiencing homelessness who aren’t experiencing a crisis where they could harm themselves or others. CAHOOTS is housed in nonprofit White Bird Clinic.

Metro Nashville Police Chief John Drake charged inspector David Imhof with the task of researching policing models around the country, and Imhof landed on Denver as a top choice, as it’s a similar-sized city to Nashville. It has a co-response model that started in 2016 as well as a separate team called STAR that comes in lieu of police that began in 2020.

“My viewpoint on it is it doesn't have to be an either/or, it can be both,” Imhof says. “I don't think there's an issue with having both. I think there's a need for both. I think our program deals more specifically with people that have severe acuity, and that also is better in crisis. The CAHOOTS model doesn't deal with people in crisis. It deals more with low level offenses or low level acuity.”

And for now, those in crisis are more of a priority to this administration, Imhof says. A co-response model was recommended by the mayor’s Policing Policy Commission and Behavioral Health and Wellness Advisory Council. Imhof said MNPD actually sees more of these types of calls in the south precinct, but North and Madison were chosen because they’re the largest and because of their proximity to Mental Health CoOp’s home base.

This program is using $561,816 of federal funds for pandemic response, according to a press release. It is unclear where funding will come from for extending this program into more areas of the city and beyond its pilot year. For 2021, Denver has allotted $1.4 million of city dollars for its STAR program. It’s co-response program is funded through the Colorado Department of Human Services and the Mental Health Center of Denver.

Imhof says he’d like to see positive outcomes, including fewer involuntary committals, and help for those that are frequent callers due to mental health crises.

“[Success looks like] limits in the number of people that have to go to the hospital, limiting the number of people who have to go to jail,” Imhof says. “Limiting the number of people having to continually call because they're in crisis. I think those are really the goals — to give people access to care, and continue to manage that care, I think is really what we want to see you get done. Bottom line, we just want help folks.”

Metro Public Health Department will be collecting statistics not only on the calls and follow-ups performed by Partners in Care, but also how many qualifying calls there are in other precincts in the next year.

Michael Randolph, MHC’s crisis supervisor, says having the two disciplines in the same car brings up more discussions about discretion of arrest for low-level offenses like trespassing or failure to appear in court, and bypassing that in favor of treatment if possible. In cases where people are arrested, there is the option of the sheriff’s Behavioral Care Center, a voluntary alternative to jail centered on mental health treatment that opened in 2020, which is also staffed by Mental Health Co-Op clinicians.

“I wish police didn't have to respond to any calls involving mental health crises and we could just send a mental health professional,” says Randolph. “And until we get there, until we improve the whole system to get to that point I think this kind of program is needed to give those people the best chance of success and link them to the best services. Then hopefully we can get in front of some of these crises, to decrease the number of serious acute crises in this city that involve police response.”