Modesto OKs mental health pros with cops on crisis calls. When might program start?
The Modesto City Council on Tuesday approved a one-year program that pairs police officers with mental health clinicians on calls involving people undergoing mental health crises.
The program is a partnership between the Police Department and Stanislaus County Behavioral Health and Recovery Services. Police Chief Brandon Gillespie said the next step is for the county Board of Supervisors to approve it.
BHRS Director Ruben Imperial said in an email he expects this proposal will come before the Board of Supervisors in May. He said he does not yet have an expected start date for the program.
BHRS “is currently working with MPD on finalizing the program design and will have information about timelines when we present the program to the Board of Supervisors,” Imperial said.
Two teams — each made up of an officer and a clinician — would provide 80 hours of coverage Monday through Friday, according to the city-county agreement for the program.
Gillespie said in an interview that his intention is to eventually have the teams provide seven days a week of coverage and focus their hours on times of greatest need.
Gillespie has said when asked whether two clinicians is enough that it is too soon to say and officials would evaluate the program, including staffing, while it was underway.
The proposal drew praise from City Council members and two members of the public.
“I really want to commend the chief (Gillespie) and Ruben (Imperial) for collaborating so well together,” said Linda Mayo, who’s with the National Alliance for Mental Illness Stanislaus. NAMI is a nationwide grass-roots organization that helps people affected by mental illness.
Mayo called this effort “a solid base” and said it’s critical the program be robust. She also serves on Forward Together, a committee the council appointed last year to review how the Police Department serves the city.
A woman — who identified herself as Patricia and an employee of the Center for Human Services’ Youth Navigation Center and Hutton House as well as Turning Point Community Programs — said her comments were her own and did not represent her employers.
Patricia told council members that she appreciated how Modesto police officers kept her and her children safe when she was the victim of domestic violence several years ago. But she said she was assaulted by Modesto officers and Stanislaus sheriff’s deputies when she was arrested in 2020.
She said that encounter might have gone much better had a mental health clinician been involved. Patricia said she was undergoing a mental health crisis and the officers and deputies did not know how to respond appropriately.
Patricia urged the City Council to expand the program in future years.
The officer-clinician teams would respond to calls that have what the police call safety concerns. That could include someone armed with a knife threatening to commit suicide or a mentally ill person in crisis engaging in a fistfight with a family member.
More training for officers
The city-county agreement for the program says the clinicians would be equipped with ballistic vests and helmets. And the officers who work with them would have undergone 40 hours of critical incident training. (Gillespie said in the interview that his department has a two-year grant to train 80 officers.)
This is part of the Police Department’s effort to provide alternative responses to some of the calls its officers handle to produce better outcomes for everyone involved.
The Police Department started the Community Health and Assistance Team, or CHAT, last year to respond to nonviolent calls that don’t require a police officer. The initial federal funding for the program is paying for four civilian outreach specialists who respond to calls involving homeless people.
The mental health clinician program was part of $800,000 in spending the City Council approved Tuesday, with the clinician program costing $390,303 for one year. The rest of the money — $409,697 — will be spent to expand CHAT from four to six civilian outreach specialists.
The additional CHAT funding pays for two specialists for two years and includes about $67,000 for a vehicle and supplies. Unlike the federal funding that started CHAT and limits its outreach to homeless people, Tuesday’s funding allows the two new specialists to handle nonviolent calls involving other people in distress.
American Rescue Plan Act
The $800,000 is from the nearly $46 million the city was allocated from the American Rescue Plan Act, the federal pandemic relief measure. Modesto has received half of the nearly $46 million and expects to receive the balance in May.
Pairing mental health clinicians with police officers essentially restarts the Police Department’s Mobile Crisis Emergency Response Team. Gillespie has said MCERT was well-regarded by officers and operated on a smaller scale than what the council approved Tuesday.
The program was discontinued around 2017 because of budget and staffing constraints. It also was a partnership with Behavioral Health and Recovery Services.
A city report states there may be times when Behavioral Health and Recovery Services may need to fill the two positions with behavioral health specialists. The county would charge the city less in those instances than what it charges for the clinicians.
This story was originally published April 14, 2022 at 6:00 AM.
