CLEVELAND, Ohio — Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb is seeking to double the size of a pilot program that integrates mental health professionals into 911 responses.
The Crisis Intervention Team sends specially trained officers and mental health professionals to calls where someone is having a mental health crisis to reduce arrests, uses of force and hospital referrals.
With $5 million in American Rescue Plan Act funding, Cleveland hopes to double the size of this team for five years. The program currently consists of one officer and one licensed clinician for each of the city’s five police districts, Wayne Drummond, Cleveland’s chief of police, said during a Wednesday City Council committee meeting.
“The goal is to keep people with mental illness out of jail” when they have not committed a crime, Drummond said.
The bulk of the requested funds, $3.75 million, would pay the $75,000 salaries of 10 licensed social workers. Other large chunks of the request would fund for three years the $135,000 salary of a “public safety/mental health strategist,” $380,000 for 10 unmarked vehicles and $260,000 to pay the salary of a specially trained mental health dispatcher, according to city documents.
The increased staff would allow crisis intervention teams to be available for an extra shift, increasing the ability for crisis teams to respond.
Officials are still figuring out what implementation of this policy would look like, should it be approved. There are three routes the legislation could take. One would be using the social workers to respond alongside police, another would be to use the social workers to respond instead of police for certain situations, and the third would be a blend of the two approaches, said Karrie Howard, Cleveland’s Department of Safety director.
Right now, a Crisis Intervention Team is on the scene only 10-15% of the time, said Carole Ballard, the director of education and training for the ADAMHS Board of Cuyahoga County.
“That’s something we’re working to improve upon,” Ballard said.
The strategy has so far been achieving its goals, Drummond said. In 2021, officials received 3,400 referrals to the Crisis Intervention Team. Of those cases, just under 900 accepted referrals or were linked with mental health services, Drummond said. What’s more, calls where the Crisis Intervention Team was involved had lower rates of people being taken to the emergency room, fewer people were placed in handcuffs and arrest rates were lower, Drummond said.
“We hope we don’t have to arrest people who are having crises, but sometimes our hands are tied,” Drummond said.
