Mental Health Emergency Services: CIT Officers And Mobile Teams In Phoenix

Press release from the City of Phoenix:

May 28, 2020

May is Mental Health Awareness Month and all month, we have taken a look at the ways Phoenix Police address mental health, both in the department and in the community. As our final story in the series, we are looking at the resources that are available to respond out when a mental health call comes in.

"People don't often plan for crisis," Detective Sabrina Taylor said. "That's sort of the definition of a crisis. We're never going to remove law enforcement from being a first responder to somebody in crisis. Ultimately, the goal is to minimize that, by having a robust crisis system."

If a mental health call is an imminent threat, officers will be dispatched and when possible, a Crisis Intervention Team, or CIT, officer will be sent. These are Phoenix Police officers that have voluntarily gone through 40 hours of training in mental health and the services available to help. About 20 percent of the Phoenix Police Department is CIT certified, including Detective Taylor.

"CIT certified officers have signed up to say 'ya, I will listen,'" Det. Taylor explained. "And so they are set up to take a little bit more time, listen, provide some of those resources, and help sort of troubleshoot how we're going to help this person today."

But if the call is not an imminent threat, a larger crisis system can be tapped into. The call will be passed on to the 24-hour county crisis line who can handle the call over the phone or send a mobile team. The mobile team is made up of crisis specialists with counseling and social work experience. Cody and Matt are a mobile team from
La Frontera Empact
.

"We see people from all walks of life," Matt said. "Mental health issues can happen to anyone."

"We will try to see if we can resolve it on scene," Cody said. "We'll do some solutions focused therapy. We'll do some validation and support. For some people, they really do just need to talk about it for a bit." These teams are trained to get people connected to the level of care they need from responding on scene to getting people to a rehab program, counselor, or behavioral health hospital. Molly and Bejya are another mobile team from Terros Health. With police, I think that we can really get them back out on the street on some more dangerous calls, with other things going on, where we can help out with the more psych based calls," Bejya said. "We always tell people everybody needs support at some point. Whether it's now. Whether it's 10 years down the road. Everyone needs it and everyone deserves it."

This press release was produced by the City of Phoenix. The views expressed here are the author’s own.