Cities Know That the Way Police Respond to Mental Crisis Calls Must Change. But How?

Published

1 year ago

February 9, 2024

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If you or someone you know may be experiencing a mental health crisis, contact the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline by dialing 988, or the Crisis Text Line by texting HOME to 741741.

Philadelphia police officers Kenneth Harper and Jennifer Torres were in their patrol car sitting at a red light when a call came in over the 911 radio dispatch.

“This job says ‘female complaint in reference to dispute with daughter, suffers from bipolar, infant on location,’” Harper read off the computer near the front seat.

This article is from a partnership that includes CapRadio, WHYY, NPR, and KFF Health News. It can be republished for free.

The officers got a little more information from the dispatcher: A mother needed help with her adult daughter who had become combative after drinking alcohol.

It was a Friday morning. Harper and Torres quickly drove off in the direction of the address they were given just a few miles away. They traveled in a white SUV, absent of any police markings, with a third team member in the back seat, Krystian Gardner. Gardner is not a police officer. Shes a mental health clinician and social worker.

“Do we know the age of the daughter?” Gardner asked the officers. She was preparing a list of possible services and treatment options.

As the team pulled up to a row house in North Philadelphia, the mother was waiting for them outside, on the front stoop. They spent 40 minutes with the family, working to de-escalate the immediate tension, provide the mom with support, and connect her daughter to treatment services.

The trio returned to the patrol car and got to work documenting what had happened and recording the visit in an electronic database.

Officer Torres commented on the adult daughter: “In regards to her mental health, she is taking care of herself, she’s taking her medication, and she’s going to therapy, so we don’t need to help her too much on that aspect.”

“She’s actually sleeping right now, so I gave her my card and she’ll call us whenever she wakes up,” Torres added.

Soon, the radio crackled with their next call, to a home across town where an older woman with a history of mental disorders had wandered outside naked.

This visit took longer, over an hour, but had a similar outcome help with the immediate mental health crisis, a connection to follow-up services with a case manager, and no arrest or use of force by police.

New Ways to Respond to Behavioral Health Needs

Emergency dispatchers in Philadelphia are increasingly assigning 911 calls involving people in mental health crises to the city’s Crisis Intervention Response Team, which pairs police officers with civilian mental health professionals. This model is called a “co-responder program.”

Cities are experimenting with new ways to meet the rapidly increasing demand for behavioral health crisis intervention, at a time when incidents of police shooting and killing people in mental health crisis have become painfully familiar.

Big questions persist: What role should law enforcement play in mental crisis response, if any? How can leaders make sure the right kind of response is dispatched to meet the needs of a person in crisis? And what kind of ongoing support is necessary after a crisis response call?

City officials and behavioral health professionals often don’t have easy answers, in part because the programs are new and hard data on their effectiveness is scarce. Without a single, definitive model for how to improve crisis response, cities are trying to learn from one another’s successes and mistakes as they build and adjust their programs. Email Sign-Up

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The Philadelphia Police Department established its Behavioral Health Unit in November 2022 and officially launched the co-responder crisis teams as a main feature.

The department said its goal is to meet people’s immediate behavioral health needs, avoiding arrests or use of force, if possible. Philadelphia’s program has answered about 600 calls since December 2022 and only one case resulted in an arrest as of November 2023, according to city data.

In about 85% of cases, people experienced one of four major outcomes: They were connected to outpatient mental health and social services, voluntarily entered psychiatric treatment, were involuntarily committed to treatment, or were taken to a hospital for medical care.

“I think the practical experiences that people have had has really opened up a lot of people’s eyes to what the work does, how it’s actually reducing harm to the community,” said Kurt August, director of Philadelphia’s Office of Criminal Justice.

Give a Social Worker a Dispatch Radio

City officials in Philadelphia looked to such cities as Los Angeles, Houston, and Denver, which have developed their own models over the years. They contacted people like Chris Richardson.

Richardson in 2016 helped found Denver’s co-responder program, which pairs police officers with mental health professionals, like Philadelphia’s CIRT program.

Denver residents had been unhappy with the status quo, Richardson recalled. At the time, rank-and-file police officers were the only ones responding to 911 calls involving people in crisis.

“We just heard a lot of those communities saying, ‘We wish there was something better,’” he said. “That’s what kind of gave us that ability to start those conversations and start a partnership.”

Getting buy-in from law enforcement and other emergency response teams took time, Richardson said. Eventually, the co-responder program grew to include all police precincts and several fire departments.

Then, Denver city and county park rangers began requesting the aid of mental health professionals to accompany them while on patrol in public spaces, and during emergency calls.

“And then, somewhere in the middle there, we were like, you know, give a social worker a radio. We’re like, why are we sending police to this, in general?” he said. “How do we take police out of things that don’t need policing?”

Denver then launched a second model, its civilian response program, in 2019. It brings together paramedics and mental health professionals to respond to crisis calls no police officers involved.

Now, Denver uses both models the co-responder program with police, and the all-civilian response program to cover Denver’s crisis needs. Richardson said both programs are necessary, at least in Denver.

“It’s a spectrum of care with behavioral health crises,” he said. “Some of it is really low-level. No threats, no safety concerns, no legal issues.”

But sometimes responders or community members may face serious safety concerns, and that’s when a co-response team that includes police officers is needed, Richardson said.

“We want to make sure that that person in crisis is still getting taken care of,” he said.

Getting the Right Responders to the Right Call

Officials in Philadelphia want the police co-responder program to work in parallel with the city’s existing network of civilian-only mental health response teams. The co-responder program is dispatched by 911, while the all-civilian program is activated when residents call 988.

The 988 system launched in July 2022, providing a three-digit number that can be dialed from any phone by people who are suicidal or experiencing a behavioral emergency. Calls are routed to a network of over 200 local and state-funded crisis centers.

“A large percentage of Philadelphians are not aware of 988,” said Jill Bowen, commissioner of the Philadelphia Department of Behavioral Health and Intellectual disAbility Services. “I like to say that people are born knowing to call 911, kind of come out of the womb and they know to call 911. And we really are trying to reach tha kind of level of awareness.”

To help sort incoming calls, 911 dispatch centers in Philadelphia have been hiring mental health professionals. They can screen calls from people in crisis who don’t need a police response, and forward them to 988.

Other cities and states are also struggling with confusion over how to handle the overlap between 911 and 988 calls.

Although 988 is a national network, calls are taken by regional call centers, which are overseen and managed by local governments. The federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration said it is working on “building strong coordination between the two services,” but it’s currently up to states and counties themselves to figure out how 911 and 988 work together.

National data collected one year after 988’s implementation showed that most calls to the service can be handled with conversation and referrals to other services. But 2% of calls to 988 require rapid in-person intervention. In most states, the responding agency is 911, which deploys traditional law enforcement, or co-response teams, if they’re available.

Next Steps: A Safe Place to Go

In states where awareness of 988 is higher, some behavioral health leaders are focused on a lack of continuing care resources for people in crisis.

During a July press conference marking one year since 988, Shari Sinwelski, the head of California’s biggest crisis call center, described the ideal crisis response as a three-legged stool: “someone to talk to, someone to respond, a safe place to go.” The idea was introduced by SAMHSA in 2020.

In California, 44 out of its 58 counties have some form of mobile crisis response, meaning a team that can travel to someone in need, according to a 2021 survey conducted in partnership with the County Behavioral Health Directors Association of California.

However, the preparedness of these teams varies significantly. The survey identified that many of them don’t operate 24/7, have long wait times (up to a day), and aren’t equipped to handle children in crisis.

The same survey found that around 43% of the state’s counties didn’t have any physical place for people to go and stabilize during and after a crisis. WellSpace Health is California’s second-biggest 988 center, by call volume, and is located in Sacramento County. A few years ago, WellSpace leaders decided it was time to open a crisis stabilization unit.

In summer 2020, WellSpace unveiled the Crisis Receiving for Behavioral Health center, known as “Crib,” in downtown Sacramento. The center receives people experiencing a mental health crisis or drug intoxication and allows them to stay for 24 hours and be connected to other services. The group says it has served more than 7,500 people since opening.

Physical locations linked to services, like Crib, are a crucial part of a well-functioning 988 system, said Jennifer Snow, national director of government relations and policy for the National Alliance on Mental Illness.

“Those crisis stabilization programs are really key to helping somebody not languish in the ER or unnecessarily get caught up in the criminal justice system,” she said.

Snow said it’s too early to know how the nation is progressing overall on building up these kinds of centers.

“This is something I am dying to know, and we just don’t,” she said.

Snow explained that the crisis care system has roots in law enforcement, so it tends to replicate law enforcement’s decentralized and locally led structure.

“It makes it harder to look at it from a national perspective and, you know, be able to identify exactly where are these services and where are the gaps in services,” she said.

Building additional crisis centers, and hiring enough response teams to respond quickly, at all hours, in more areas of the U.S., would require significant investment. The current system relies heavily on state and local government funding, and more federal support is needed, Snow said.

In 2022, a group of legislators introduced the 988 Implementation Act in the House of Representatives. They were able to pass several provisions, including securing $385 million for certified community behavioral health clinics, which operate 24/7 crisis care, and $20 million for mobile crisis response pilot programs.

The bill was reintroduced in 2023, with the goal of passing the remaining sections. A significant provision would force Medicare and Medicaid, as well as private health insurance, to reimburse providers for crisis services.

This article is from a partnership that includes CapRadio, WHYY, NPR, and KFF Health News.

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Entertainment

Urdd Eisteddfod: Why Strictly star Amy Dowden is supporting Welsh festival that is ‘like Britain’s Got Talent’

Published

1 hour ago

May 26, 2025

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Urdd Eisteddfod: Why Strictly star Amy Dowden is supporting Welsh festival that is 'like Britain's Got Talent'

Thousands of people are expected to attend Port Talbot this weekend as the town gears up to welcome an annual Welsh festival.

The Urdd Eisteddfod is a celebration of Welsh culture when children and young people up to the age of 25 take part in a variety of competitions.

There are 400 of them in total, including singing, reciting poetry and dancing.

The Urdd organisation itself was established more than a century ago in 1922, with the aim of giving children and young people in Wales the opportunity to learn and socialise in the Welsh language.

Its six-day Eisteddfod is held during May half-term and in a different part of Wales each year.

The Urdd Eisteddfod broke its own records last year, with more than 100,000 registrations to compete.

Margam Park is home to this year’s event – the first time since 2003 that it’s played host.

Among the main prizes up for grabs this year are the chair (awarded to the main poetry competition winner) and the crown (awarded to the main prose competition winner).

This year’s crown and chair have been made using some of the final pieces of steel produced at Port Talbot steelworks before the closure of the blast furnaces last year.

There are some new additions to this year’s Eisteddfod, including awards for singing, musical theatre and acting, named in honour of Sir Bryn Terfel, Callum Scott Howells and Matthew Rhys.

Another new award – the Amy Dowden award for dance – will also be awarded for the first time this week.

Speaking to Sky News, Strictly Come Dancing star Dowden said it was a “real honour” to be supporting the next generation of dancers.

“The arts and the industry is tough, and I just hope that [the young people] can see that I’ve managed to push myself through it,” she said.

“I’ve worked hard, I’ve had a few challenges along the way. Hopefully I can help inspire them as well.”

‘It’s like Britain’s Got Talent’

As a former competitor herself in what is one of Europe’s largest touring youth festivals, Dowden says she “couldn’t imagine [her] childhood without it”.

“I’ve loved Eisteddfods since I can remember. Every year at school I took part in everything, from the baking to the reciting poems, to the folk dancing, to the creative dancing,” she said.

“The Urdd Eisteddfod is literally like one big talent competition, it’s like Britain’s Got Talent.”

The winner of the Amy Dowden award will get one-to-one sessions with her as part of the prize, as well as masterclasses at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama.

They will have the opportunity to perform on an international stage and also win a cash prize.

“I know from my dance training and everything, each of those is so beneficial to getting yourself to that professional level,” Dowden added.

UK

Living beside the UK’s first drug consumption room

Published

1 hour ago

May 26, 2025

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Living beside the UK's first drug consumption room

It’s 8.34am on a Tuesday and Vanessa Paton is taking me on a tour of Glasgow’s east end, where she has lived for almost 50 years.

Half a mile away sits the newly opened taxpayer-funded facility, named The Thistle, where drug addicts can bring their heroin and cocaine, are handed clean needles and invited to inject under NHS medical supervision.

The concept, a UK first, is controversial and costs £2.3m a year.

Authorities believe it provides a safer, cleaner area for users to do their business, away from the dirty, HIV-ridden back alleys of Glasgow city centre.

It opened in January, and around 250 people have used it so far.

But there is a growing feeling among some that a by-product of this bold project is the alleged “war zone” being created in the community around the new building.

Former council worker Ms Paton is one of an ad-hoc group of furious locals who pick up needles as part of desperate efforts to clear their streets.

She says: “It is getting worse. The new room has appeared, and the problems have escalated with it. It’s a no-go war zone every day and night.

“The area’s becoming a toilet. That is the harsh reality of it.”

‘It is disgusting’

Sky News spends the morning being shown areas where it is claimed the issues are getting out of control.

Ms Paton pulls a bloodied, faeces-covered hospital gown out of a bush as we walk along a path behind a row of houses.

We turn the corner to a street where children play and are greeted with syringes filled with blood at our feet, discarded needle packaging and dirty underwear.

Local resident Angela Scott says: “It’s become a lot worse. It’s heightened. I’m scared that if I am picking up my dog dirt am I going to prick a needle.

“Am I going to end up with an infection that a lot of drug addicts tend to have because they are sharing needles? I don’t want to pick up something infectious.”

Adverts installed in known drug dens

Officials have installed a new needle bin in one hotspot in recent days, with posters erected advertising the nearby consumption room.

Ms Paton alleges safety steps are being taken at a nearby nursery.

“There is a nursery that actually uses a metal detector in the morning to scan the sandpits before the children go out because of the concern of the needles being in it,” she claims.

This area is known as Calton and has had its troubles with drug taking and crime for many years.

Ms Paton takes us to a tucked-away, overgrown area opposite social housing and a few metres from where a new school is being built. It is a makeshift drug den.

There are hundreds of freshly used needles. It is like a minefield.

One needle is stabbed into a large tree, there is even a wooden seat which is covered in drug-taking equipment.

Once again, there is a laminated A4 piece of paper pointing users in the direction of The Thistle.

Ms Paton says: “We picked up 50 needles in one minute last week. If we were to pick up every needle that is here today, we’d be talking hundreds.

“We are struggling to find somewhere safe to stand. There are needles between my legs, you’ve got needles behind your head.

“It’s totally soul-destroying. Nobody living here expected it to be this bad.”

Officials deny it is a new problem

Glasgow City Council told Sky News there had not been an increase in reports despite the community alleging the opposite.

Councillor Allan Casey, who is responsible for drug policy in the city, said: “This has been a long-standing issue and that is one of the main reasons why The Thistle has been placed where it is because there has been decades-long discarded needles in public places.

Responding to claims of increasing problems around the new facility, Mr Casey said: “Those reports don’t back that up.

“The council has not seen a rise in reports of injecting equipment and there has not been an increase in crime reports.”

Scotland is ravaged by drugs. The country has the worst drug death rate in Europe.

Scotland’s first minister John Swinney told Sky News the new drug room required time to “see the impact”.

He said: “The Thistle is a safe consumption facility which is designed to encourage people to come off the use of drugs – that’s its purpose. We’ve got to give that venture time to see the impact.

“We need to engage with the local community… and address any concerns.”

It is understood police have logged no calls about the facility since it opened in January, despite some residents suggesting they have contacted officers with concerns.

Inspector Max Shaw from Police Scotland said: “We are aware of long-standing issues in the area and continue to work closely in partnership to address these concerns.”

Sports

Edmonton takes control over Stars: Game 3 grades, takeaways

Published

4 hours ago

May 26, 2025

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Edmonton takes control over Stars: Game 3 grades, takeaways

Multiple Contributors

May 25, 2025, 06:35 PM ET

While fans in Edmonton and Dallas are always singing about how they have friends in low places, only one of them has the high ground in the Western Conference finals. And that’s the Oilers after their 6-1 win Sunday in Game 3 to take a 2-1 series lead.

With the series tied heading into Sunday, the objective for Game 3 was to gain a firm grasp of the conference finals, and the Oilers did just that by having five players with multipoint performances. As for the Stars, losing Game 3 left them trailing a series for the second time this postseason, with the only other such occurrence coming after Game 1 against the Colorado Avalanche in the first round.

Now that the Oilers are in control of the series, what does it mean for them going forward? What must the Stars do differently ahead of Game 4 for them to return home tied rather than a game away from elimination? Ryan S. Clark and Greg Wyshynski examine those questions while delving into what lies ahead for two teams that not only faced each other in the conference finals last season but between them have been involved in every conference final since 2020.

Edmonton Oilers
Grade: A

Much could change between now and whenever the playoffs end. But for now, the argument could be made that this was the most important playoff game the Oilers have had this postseason.

The Oilers have had numerous strong performances, such as Game 3 against the Los Angeles Kings in the first round or their final two games against the Vegas Golden Knights in the conference semifinals. But what made the Oilers’ performance in Game 3 against Dallas arguably their most important was that they found a balance between being difficult in the defensive zone while not relying on a shutout to accomplish that objective.

The Stars finished with 37 shots, 13 high-danger chances in 5-on-5 play and scored only once. Connor McDavid has repeatedly stressed that the Oilers can play defense, and that has been made clear over their past five games. But Sunday proved they didn’t need Stuart Skinner or their defensive structure to blank an opponent to win. — Ryan S. Clark

Dallas Stars
Grade: C+

The final score doesn’t reflect the majority of this game, which Dallas coach Pete DeBoer can mine for positives among the many (many) negatives and some mitigating circumstances. Having Roope Hintz warm up but not be able to go because of the foot injury he suffered from a Darnell Nurse slash in Game 2? That’s deflating. Having the on-ice officials miss a delay of game call on Brett Kulak in the first period only to have Evan Bouchard open the scoring 10 seconds later? Also deflating.

So it’s to the Stars’ credit that they got to their game at 5-on-5 in Game 3 better than they have in any game of the series, at least before Edmonton ran up the score in the third. The results weren’t there and a loss is a loss — and a loss by this margin is difficult to stomach — but their second period and the performances from some of their slumbering depth players give the Stars at least a glimmer.

However, there’s no question Edmonton has this thing in well in-hand and the Stars have to find a way to solve Skinner, which is not something I thought I’d be writing at this stage of the postseason. — Greg Wyshynski

Three Stars of Game 3

Two goals and an assist for his seventh career multigoal playoff game. Hyman’s second goal was the Oilers’ fourth off the rush, the most in one game by any team this postseason. Hyman also was plus-5 Sunday.

Bouchard scored his sixth goal of the postseason and these two were on the ice for the first two Edmonton goals. At 5-on-5 this postseason, the Oilers are outscoring their opponents 7-1, and 5-0 in this series, when Bouchard and Kulak are on the ice.

Connor McDavid restores Oilers’ 2-goal lead

Connor McDavid finds the back of the net to restore the Oilers’ two-goal lead vs. the Stars.

3. Connor McDavid
C, Oilers

For all the talk about the lack of goals from the best hockey player in the world (which was odd because he had 20 points in 13 games and was a plus-7 entering Game 3 despite having only three goals), McDavid punched out a pair of tucks for his sixth career multigoal playoff game. Also, seeing McDavid with the puck barreling toward the net on a 3-on-1 is nightmare fuel for opponents. — Arda Öcal

Players to watch in Game 4

Zach Hyman
LW, Oilers

To go from 16 goals last postseason to just three goals entering Game 3 of the conference finals is one way to assess Hyman. Another is to realize that he’s been the most physical player on a team that is among the tallest and heaviest in the NHL.

Hyman came into Game 3 leading the NHL with 99 hits. He remained physical Sunday by leading the way with six hits in a game that saw the Oilers continue their punishing style with 47. But to then see Hyman score two goals and finish with three points in addition to that physicality? It once again adds to the narrative that the Oilers might not only have more dimensions than last year’s team, they could be better than the team that finished Stanley Cup runner-up in 2024. — Clark

Zach Hyman’s 2nd goal puts Oilers up 4

Zach Hyman taps home his second goal of the game to put the Oilers up 5-1 vs. the Stars.

This is the first two-game losing streak for the Dallas goaltender in the playoffs. A lot of what happened in Game 3 wasn’t necessarily on him — a Connor McDavid beauty and a Zach Hyman breakaway were among the Edmonton tallies — but outside of the third period of Game 1, he’s not been a difference-maker in this series. Oettinger came into the game leading the playoffs with 5.58 goals saved above expected, according to Stathletes. The Stars have been able to depend on him as a slump-breaker. But this is his third game with a save percentage south of .900 in the series. As the Stars try to build on some positives from this game, they need Otter to provide the foundation for it — and in the process, silence those “U.S. backup!” chants from the Oilers fans. — Wyshynski

Big questions for Game 4

Are the Oilers about to do to the Stars what they did to the Golden Knights?

Simply put, the Oilers are where hope goes to die. Teams in a championship window that have yet to win a title are always being judged on their evolution. What the Oilers did to the Stars a year ago in the conference finals by winning the last three games showed that they could close out a series after trailing. This postseason Edmonton has shown a calculated and methodical coldness when it comes to putting away opponents.

The Golden Knights won Game 3 on a last-second goal to create the belief they may have found an opening. They didn’t score again for the rest of the playoffs after being in the top five of goals per game throughout the regular season. Breaking out for six goals to open the series seemed to be a sign the Stars may have found an opening. Since then? They’ve scored only once in the last six periods while facing questions about what’s happened to another team that went from being in the top five in goals per game in the regular season. — Clark

Can Dallas make Edmonton uncomfortable at all?

Our colleague Mark Messier made this point between periods of Game 3: The Stars have yet to do anything to get McDavid or Leon Draisaitl off their games. That extends to the rest of the Oilers. Outside of an anomalous run of three power-play goals in the third period of Game 1, there have been precious few instances of the Stars carrying play for long stretches or putting a scare into Edmonton at 5-on-5.

They had that for a bit in Game 3 with a dominant second period: plus-14 in shot attempts, plus-11 in scoring chances and a 10-1 advantage in high-danger shot attempts. But they were digging out of a 2-0 hole, only managed to get one goal of their own on the board and then McDavid stuck a dagger in them with 19 seconds left in the second.

The Stars need a lead. They need zone time. They need to get their rush game going: Skinner had a .897 save percentage on shots off the rush entering the game. Edmonton is playing with a champion’s confidence. Dallas has to find a way to inject a little doubt into its opponent or this series is going to end quickly. — Wyshynski