Co-Responder Teams For Police Calls Involving Mental Illness
In 1991, police in Los Angeles pioneered a "co-responder teams" concept under
their "SMART" (System-wide Mental Assessment Response Teams) Program.
The successful program paired specifically trained officers with embedded mental health professionals to respond to psychiatric emergency calls. More than 60% of the 101 subjects engaged by the SMART teams during the pilot's sample period were characterized by "acute and chronic severe mental illness, a high potential for violence, a high incidence of serious substance abuse, and long histories with both the criminal justice and mental health systems." Yet, only 2% of the subjects were arrested. Also, only 19% of the encounters ended with transportation to either a hospital or jail due to the field evaluation and clinician intervention. The authors concluded that the approach resulted in more treatment and less incarceration for the population.
In the years that followed, the police embedded Mental Health Co-Responder Model was proven in research and shown to be a superior model. On-scene collaboration is a Level 1, Sequential Intercept Model intervention that yields superior outcomes. Researchers and consumers noted that embedded clinicians were more effective and utilized than clinicians who were not embedded. Embedding clinicians is game-changing.
Today, this powerful specialized police response model, based on collaboration with mental health professionals, is an evidence-based proven model that is seeing rapidly expanding use in the U.S. and internationally. It is proven to be superior to the status quo of police being used as de-facto mobile mental health crisis workers and gate-keepers to access to proper mental health care.
We invite you to learn more about why the police embedded Mental Health Co-Responder Model is an effective model producing positive outcomes for law enforcement agencies, mental healthcare networks, and citizens in crisis.
We also invite you to challenge the status quo by informing fellow citizens that the future is collaboration between systems, not the status quo.