RICHMOND, Va. -- Leaders in Richmond say the Crisis Response Team is a proven solution in helping divert hundreds of mental health crises from resulting in hospitalizations or jail time.
In the year since the program’s inception in August of 2022, the program's supervisor, Paula Bartlett, said demand has been more than they can serve with their small team. She said of the 500 calls they’ve responded to, they say 91% of them resulted in a positive outcome that didn’t involve hospitalization, jail or harm.
"Our program is phenomenal and it’s working," Bartlett said.
The Community Response Team is sent to critical mental health situations that come in through 911 and the city's non-emergency line. It is housed under the Richmond Behavioral Health Authority. They get sent to mental health situations instead of a Patrol officer when available to deescalate a situation that is more of a mental health matter than a crime.
That crisis response team deployed is a mental health clinician and trained RPD crisis intervention officer. Right now they have two of these teams based on funding and staffing.The team hopes to secure more funding from the City of Richmond to expand their team, as well as seek out grants and state funding.
“There’s a lot of work in the community that needs to be done," Bartlett said.
Kristen Ellis Strickler serves as one of the team's clinicians and said she sees why the work is important. She said in many situations people are not able to go to seek out help, and need it brought to them in their environment.
She shared just a handful of experiences of how they’ve helped people. It ranged from veterans in crisis, suicidal individuals with weapons, to individuals running into traffic.
“They deserve help from people who are skilled and knowledgeable that can help give them resources. “If I can help them then that’s worth it for me," Strickler shared.
According to Bartlett, the strategy of the program allows them to cut down on the traumatic experience of being placed under an emergency custody order, and go to the hospital for evaluation. They are able to bypass that process if they can deescalate the situation and get people directly plugged into resources.
"We can skip that and bypass that and handle it and escalate it right then and there," she said.
Of note, the team said in Virginia there is no central reporting system across agencies for behavioral issues. That is because of HIPPA and the importance of protecting personal info. However, they shared if an officer responds on scene with a clinician and witnesses something firsthand, they can document that behavioral issues for the police system. Police would then have that info if they respond back out to an individual.
Click here if you are interesting in joining the Community Response Team.
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