WORCESTER – The City of Worcester is scheduled to pilot a new crisis response model in June that will be a collaboration between Community Healthlink (CHL) clinical staff, police, and emergency management. The model will have crisis teams that include mental health clinicians, case managers, call center managers, and peers.
In October, the city awarded CHL a contract to develop a crisis intervention community response model.
According to CHL CEO Tamara Lundi, these teams will be dispatched to crisis sites to de-escalate situations, stabilize clients, and connect the client to local mental health and substance use resources. Crisis team members will be trained on how to handle well-being checks, hoarding, suicidality, sudden death, grief and loss, traumatic events, substance use disorders, veteran populations, elders, and youth.
In a memo to Worcester City Councilors, Lundi says the model selected by a cross-section advisory committee, “understands the complex relationship between the residents of Worcester and law enforcement and will be built to minimize less than positive and less than optimal interactions between all parties.”
CHL is working with Worcester Emergency Services, the Worcester Police Department, local hospitals, and community-based organizations in the development of the program. It is also working with Promoting Good Inc. to focus the program on the diversity of the residents of Worcester, with Abbott Solutions for Justice to develop training specific to crisis response, and with SENSIS Agency for the marketing and communication plan, which includes interviews, focus groups, and community forums.
The development of the program has been planned in three stages. The first phase includes establishing the advisory committee, reviewing current practices, defining the model, defining roles and job descriptions, and recruiting a program manager. Lundi says those steps are complete.
The second phase includes the development of training materials, workflows, and processes. That phase of development is now underway.
The third phase includes pilot implementation, review, and analysis.
Several municipalities in Massachusetts use some form of support to augment police response to mental health crises. According to the Massachusetts Department of Mental Health, Crisis intervention teams exist in Amherst, Fall River, Greenfield, Somerville and Springfield.
Co-response programs, which embed a clinician in a police department to assist with behavioral health needs, exist in 17 Massachusetts municipalities including Boston, Framingham, Marlborough, and Natick,
CHL, at 72 Jaques St. in Worcester, is part of UMass Memorial Health and serves those in need of mental health and addiction services. It says it serves 20,000 individuals and families every year, including over 100,000 outpatient visits, over 8,000 crisis evaluations, and over 3,500 inpatient substance use disorder admissions. It has operated since 1977 and also has adult services centers in Fitchburg and Leominster and youth and family services locations at 335 Chandler Street and in Leominster.
Image Credit: Worcester E.M.S./ Facebook
