Community Responder Programs
Highlighted Resources
Expanding First Response: A Toolkit for Community Responder Programs
Produced By: Council of State Governments Justice Center
Supported By: Vital Strategies
Description: This toolkit serves as a central hub for local communities and states looking to establish or strengthen community responder programs. Drawing on the experience of emerging models across the country, the toolkit presents key issues that are crucial to the success of any program. It will be updated regularly with program highlights and additional resources for the field.
Keywords: Community responder model; first responders
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How to Successfully Implement a Mobile Crisis Team (2021)
Produced By: Council of State Governments Justice Center
Supported By: Bureau of Justice Assistance
Description: As officers are increasingly tasked with responding to people in crisis, jurisdictions are seeking ways to support their law enforcement agencies while also addressing their crisis system needs. For many communities, mobile crisis teams--trained health professionals who can provide on-the-scene crisis assistance--are a great option. These responders often reduce reliance on traditional criminal justice measures such as arrest and citations and reduce transfers to emergency rooms. This brief provides an overview of mobile crisis teams and offers four tips to ensure their success.
Keywords: Mobile crisis teams; crisis response; collaboration
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Other Resources
Directory
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I. Overview
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Community Responder Programs: Understanding the Call Triage Process (2021)
Produced By: Council of State Governments Justice Center
Supported By: Vital Strategies
Description: Community responder programs are an increasingly common component of local emergency response systems across the country. Often used to respond to mental health and substance use (i.e., behavioral health) crises and social disturbances, these health professionals and trained crisis staff provide immediate assistance to people in crisis, facilitate connections to support services, conduct wellness checks, and more. One challenging aspect of implementing such a program, however, is ensuring that community responders are included in the local call triage process(es) so that emergency call centers can identify and relay appropriate calls to them. This brief highlights the different ways call triage can be used to inform and dispatch community responders.
Keywords: Call triage; community responder model; first responder; mental health; substance use; dispatch
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Community Responder Programs: Keys to Building a Strong Call Triage Process (2021)
Produced By: Council of State Governments Justice Center
Supported By: Vital Strategies
Description: Effective call triaging enables communities to connect people in need of emergency and non-emergency assistance to the most appropriate response as quickly as possible. For community responder programs—teams that position health professionals and trained crisis staff as first responders—call triaging can ensure that they receive the information needed to safely address a situation. This brief provides recommendations for ensuring a successful, strong call triage process for community responder programs.
Keywords: Call triage; community responder model; first responder; mental health professional
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Introducing Community Responders: How to Dispatch the Right Response to Every 911 Call (2021)
Produced By: Center for American Progress
Description: The Center for American Progress (CAP) and the Law Enforcement Action Partnership (LEAP) discuss the need for a new branch of civilian first responders, known as community responders to respond to behavioral health and social service calls and quality-of-life and conflict calls. This fact sheet discusses example community responder programs.
Keywords: Community responder models
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The Community Responder Model: How Cities Can Send the Right Responder to Every 911 Call (2020)
Produced By: Center for American Progress
Description: The Center for American Progress (CAP) and the Law Enforcement Action Partnership (LEAP) discuss the need for a new branch of civilian first responders, known as community responders to respond to lower-risk 911 calls related to mental health conditions, substance use disorders, and homelessness and other calls unrelated to behavioral health conditions (e.g., disturbances, noise complaints, suspicious persons, etc.). CAP and LEAP analyzed 911 call data from eight cities to estimate that between 21-38% of calls could be addressed to community responders. The report describes opportunities, challenges, and recommendations for establishing community responder programs, including providing program examples.
Keywords: Community responder models
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What Happens When We Send Mental Health Providers Instead of Police (2021)
Produced By: Vera Institute of Justice
Description: Approaches vary, but a growing number of cities are starting programs that rely on first responders who aren’t police, such as counselors or social workers, to respond to calls that involve mental health crises and substance use. It provides example civilian response programs.
Keywords: Community responder; civilian response; mobile crisis teams
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Non-Law Enforcement Responses to People Experiencing a Mental Health Crisis (2021) - Webinar
Produced By: National Association of Counties
Description: Counties and cities across the country are looking for innovative ways to respond to 911 calls for service involving people experiencing a mental health crisis. Local leaders are exploring potential non-law enforcement responses through mobile crisis teams or other types of partnerships. This webinar features localities that have created such programs, their lessons learned and resulting best practices.
Keywords: Mobile crisis teams; community responder
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Produced By: The Council of State Governments Justice Center; University of Cincinnati
Supported By: Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA)
Description: When designing a community responder program, local leaders should look to the insights and lessons offered by violence intervention models. For the past two decades, violence interventions have been successfully deploying credible messengers—individuals whose strong ties to the neighborhood help foster relationships and legitimacy with residents—to resolve community conflicts and engage high-risk individuals in healthier behaviors. This session brings together law enforcement and violence interventionists to think creatively about the role of credible messengers in community responder programs. Participants will hear directly from credible messengers themselves and will get a sneak preview from some localities that are planning how to integrate the lessons of violence intervention into community responder program development.
Keywords: Community responder programs
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Produced By: National Association of State Mental Health Program Directors
Supported By: Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA)
Description: Webinar participants can expect to: learn about one policing alternative being used and discussed in many parts of the country, the CAHOOTS program, learn from real life experiences of two advocates about issues that need to be considered when discussing these alternatives in the public forum, and; learn about barriers to finding a solution, and ways to work together to achieve a successful outcome.
Keywords: crisis services; mobile crisis teams; first responders; jails; community responder programs
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Collecting and Utilizing Data in Community Responder Programs (2021) - Webinar
Produced By: Council of State Governments Justice Center
Supported By: Vital Strategies
Description: Across the U.S., local governments are seeking to respond to appeals from residents to institutionalize public safety and crisis response systems without further relying on incarceration. Community responder programs (CRPs) have been implemented in some localities to address such concerns. This virtual discussion focuses on data collection and utilization strategies in CRPs and features speakers from the CSG Justice Center, Portland Street Response (PSR), and Integral Care.
Keywords: Data; community responder
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Integrated Mental Health and Physical Health Mobile Crisis Response (2020) - Webinar
Produced By: GAINS Center for Behavioral Health and Justice Transformation
Supported By: Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA)
Description: This webinar features Williamson County, Texas Emergency Medical Services Mobile Outreach Team and White Bird Clinic's CAHOOTS program in Eugene Oregon.
Keywords: mental health; mobile crisis teams; community responder programs
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Developing a Community-Based Emergency First Responders (EFR) Program
Produced By: The Justice Collaborative Institute, Drug Policy Alliance, & Vera Institute of Justice
Description: In the best of times, local communities struggle to meet the health needs of highly vulnerable people, including those who struggle with mental health or substance use disorder, poverty, or housing insecurity, or otherwise lack access to traditional health care resources. Included in this packet are examples of what different jurisdictions have done in practice and in legislation to address these community needs.
Keywords: Disability; mental Health; legislation
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How a 911-EMS Crisis Intervention Diverts People in Mental Health Crisis (2021)
Produced By: Crisis Talk
Description: In 2013, Grady EMS in Atlanta, Georgia, launched a pilot to provide 911 callers experiencing mental health challenges an alternative to traditional Emergency Medical Services transport to the emergency department. This resource describes the Upstream Mobile Crisis Intervention program and its successes.
Keywords: EMS-ambulance based program; community responder; 911 diversion
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"Defunding the Police" and People with Mental Illness (2020)
Produced By: Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law
Description: This resource discusses the potential for a decreased police role in responding to mental health crises. It provides examples of successful efforts like CAHOOTS in Oregon.
Keywords: crisis response, mental health, crisis teams; community responder programs
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Produced By: National League of Cities
Supported By: John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation
Description: This report provides recommendations from the National League of Cities (NLC) Reimagining Public Safety Task Force for city leaders and communities about innovation in public safety. Recommendations are provided to shape policy and reform practices around public safety. Two cities are highlighted and resources are provided.
Keywords: Reimagining public safety; reform recommendations; alternative responses
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II. Mobile Crisis Teams
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Wake County, North Carolina: Mobile Crisis Teams Supporting Those Experiencing Mental Illness, Substance Use Disorder, and Homelessness
Produced By: National League of Cities
Supported By: Arnold Ventures
Description: Wake County developed a number of innovative programs that target the intersecting challenges of substance use disorders, homelessness and mental health conditions. Notably, the county was able to take advantage of North Carolina’s transition to a Medicaid managed care system to invest in these programs. This case study will focus on Wake County’s Enhanced Mobile Crisis Pilot Program and present key takeaways for other cities and counties considering similar cross-systems approaches.
Keywords: Crisis response; mobile crisis team; first responders; behavioral health
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Produced By: Vera Institute of Justice
Description: Staffed and operated by Eugene’s White Bird Clinic, the CAHOOTS program dispatches two-person teams of crisis workers and medics to respond to 911 and non-emergency calls involving people in behavioral health crisis—calls that in many other communities are directed to police by default. This case study describes the CAHOOTS program in Eugene, Oregon.
Keywords: Community responder; civilian response; mobile crisis teams
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Erica Chestnut-Ramirez on Mobile Crisis as the First Responders of Behavioral Health (2020)
Produced By: Crisis Talk
Description: This resource describes mobile crisis teams and their benefits. It describes mobile crisis teams in Maricopa county, including their development and services provided.
Keywords: mobile crisis teams
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Produced By: National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI)
Description: In part two of the webinar series, experts provide an overview of 988 legislation and an additional model of community crisis response, CAHOOTS (Crisis Assistance Helping Out on the Streets), developed by the White Bird Clinic in Oregon. The 988 initiative aims to implement a three-digit national call number for mental health crises to divert people in crisis from unnecessary interaction with law enforcement. Experts from NAMI’s Advocacy and Public Policy team, Angela Kimball and Hannah Wesolowski, provide information on the history, funding, and prospective implementation of the system, including next steps at both the federal and state levels. Following the legislative overview, CAHOOTS Program Coordinator Ebony Morgan presents on the White Bird Clinic’s model, which provides 24/7 mobile crisis intervention in the cities of Eugene and Springfield, Oregon. CAHOOTS is designed to connect people in crisis with trained crisis intervention workers and medical personnel as an alternative to law enforcement when appropriate. This webinar discusses what the CAHOOTS model is, how it functions, and what it really means to connect people experiencing a mental health crisis with responders trained in that field.
Keywords: Mobile crisis teams; community responder programs
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Mobile Crisis Teams: A State Planning Guide for Medicaid-Financed Crisis Response Services (2022)
Produced By: Technical Assistance Collaborative
Supported By: California Health Care Foundation; Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Philanthropies
Description: This planning guide reviews requirements of the American Rescue Plan Act related to community-based mobile crisis intervention services, and identifies planning considerations for states in developing or refining mobile crisis services that qualify for the enhanced Federal Medical Assistance Percentage (FMAP). While the primary focus is on mobile crisis, this guide also highlights state considerations that will support a more robust crisis continuum, including the 988 behavioral health crisis line.
Keywords: Mobile crisis teams; Medicaid; crisis response
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Produced By: Technical Assistance Collaborative
Supported By: California Health Care Foundation; Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Philanthropies
Description: In the context of new federal funding policies and the upcoming launch of the 988 behavioral health crisis line, this brief identifies important issues in mobile crisis implementation and describes ways that federal agencies can support state and local efforts.
Keywords: Mobile crisis teams; Medicaid; crisis response
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