The city of DeSoto is taking a less “police centric” approach when emergency responders are called to assist in mental health emergencies.
The Community Assistance Response and Engagement, or CARE, team is made up of behavioral health experts who will serve as co-responders to mental health-related 911 calls, which include behavioral health emergencies, homelessness episodes, and emotionally charged situations.
Majed Al-Ghafry, city manager for DeSoto, said the CARE team is not new to the city, but the model has changed.
“With this model, the disorder care will go hand in hand with the first responder,” Al-Ghafry said. "If there is a situation where someone is experiencing mental challenges, the CARE team is on a standby. The minute the officer waves them, they come in immediately.”
Under the previous model, if someone were experiencing a behavioral health emergency, officers would take their information, return to the office and then deploy the CARE team.
The major difference is that the program used to be more reactive, Al-Ghafry said. Now, mental health specialists will get involved on the spot when needed.
“It's not going to be police centric,” he said. "It's going to more of crisis intervention specialists and mental health experts.”
Al-Ghafry said DeSoto’s new CARE team, rolling out later this month, is based on the CARE model used by the Mesquite, Since 2021 the city has partnered with Balch Springs, Seagoville, and Sunnyvale for the Community Cares Team Southeast Alliance.
"Our goal, our mission, is to lower the burden of mental health and homelessness on police and fire and hospital systems,” said behavioral health manager Melissa Carr, who oversees the 911 Cares response teams for the four cities, “because traditionally and historically that's who you call when you have these problems.”
Carr said they are like a consult team for police and fire and can be dispatched and do an assessment to see what a client needs.
“We've be able to bring that element where police and fire know that they're not the experts and that they can call a clinician and we can be there within minutes," Carr said.
She said many of the emergency calls that require their assistance involve a family member who has already been diagnosed with a mental illness, such as schizophrenia or bipolar disorder.
"If police and fire are calling us that means that they've already determined there's not a crime happening, right?” Carr said. "Nobody needs to go to jail. There's not a big problem with that.”
She said this seems to be the “wave of the future” as more cities across the country are implementing alternative methods, similar to this one, when responding to emergency calls.
DeSoto currently has crisis intervention specialists and a paramedic and are currently in negotiations with Parkland Hospital to include as part of their response team, according to Al-Ghafry.
“We'll keep monitoring this model really closely to make sure that we're getting the results, the desired outcome that we expect from it,” he said.
Priscilla Rice is KERA’s communities reporter. Got a tip? Email her at price@kera.org.
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