Brighton police to tackle mental health calls more effectively through new co-responder program
The city of Brighton and its police department are taking on a new way of addressing mental health crises in the community through a new co-responders program.
"In late 2022, myself and the victim services manager applied for a grant," said Commander Monce Portillo with the Brighton Police Department. "We were awarded just over half a million dollars from the Bureau of Justice Assistance and that gave us the opportunity to kick off a co-responder program."
The co-responder program, which started earlier this month, pairs mental health clinicians with Brighton police officers at the scene of a call when a mental health crisis is taking place.
"Call will come in like normal to dispatch. Our police officer will be dispatched to that location. They'll show up and realize that this is not a police issue, or not an emergency like a criminal matter, if you will. At that point our police officer will reach out to our co-responder," said Portillo. "Co-responder will respond and work with the police officer and that person to help them meet their needs."
The three-year grant research program currently consists of two mental health clinicians, a case manager, a police department supervisor, a Reaching HOPE supervisor, a project director, and a researcher.
"We recognize that trauma is prevalent in our community, and so much around mental health and substance abuse is linked to a history of trauma," said Dr. Ambra Born.
Born is the Executive Director for Reaching Hope, a nonprofit in Adams County that has already been providing mental health services for families in areas of sexual abuse, domestic violence, physical abuse and other traumas.
"This really allows us to start getting involved in a different way and recognizing and finding people who are struggling with mental health but also have trauma histories, and provide resources and support that help divert them from crimes or even further victimization because we can get them in wraparound services and get them safe and stable," said Born.
For police, it alleviates some of the previous challenges with dealing with calls for service that had a mental health component.
"Prior, our police officers were left to be creative and deal with the situation. So, that could've been connecting folks with the hospital, on a mental health hold, or sometimes it does create criminal charges putting them into jail or summonsing them," said Portillo. "Or just being creative and trying to hook them up with people within their family or other resources as they may need."
Now, with co-responders, police will be able to dispatch people who can de-escalate individuals in crisis, provide on-scene treatment, and connect individuals to resources that can further address their crises, like behavioral health and substance use treatment options.
"It allows the police officer to go back to police work on issues that are important to the community and allows the clinician to focus on this individual person and help that person through their crisis," said Portillo.
Born says the two clinicians on the team are on a rotating schedule addressing mental health related police calls, but the goal is to add on more clinicians in the future to cover a wider range of Brighton and more hours of the day.
"That we start here and as we get our feet wet and know what we're doing that we start to cover hours that are really in need, or that we start to partner with other agencies so that we can get 24 hour coverage ultimately," she said.
