Illinois State University police are implementing a co-responder policing program where mental health professionals and law enforcement make joint responses to 911 calls.
They are using the University of Illinois Police Department’s program called REACH — Response, Evaluation and Crisis Help — as a model.
The U of I department (UIPD) recently was named the Crisis Intervention Training Department of the Year by the Illinois Law Enforcement Training and Standards Board for its response to mental health crises, according to the U of I Division of Public Safety. UIPD Crisis Outreach Coordinator Megan Cambron said much of the success is due to REACH.
However, ISU Police Department chief Aaron Woodruff said ISU’s program will not be identical to the U of I program, adding ISU is mainly looking to REACH for the co-response approach.
“Our officers now will be able to take that clinician or that crisis worker right to the scene, make sure the scene is safe, let that crisis worker deal with the student in crisis and step back,” he said. “If the officer needs to step in, they step in, but for the most part, we'll just follow the directions of that crisis worker on how we're going to handle the situation.”
Woodruff said he’s hoping the program will launch at the start of the fall semester, but it may take a little longer.
Until then, ISU already has a mobile crisis team that will come to the scene upon police request. The current problem is that response times are too long.
“In the university housing we're seeing — like all departments — we're seeing an increase in mental health-related calls,” he said. “We can't wait around an hour or two for them to show up.”
Cambron said campus police departments are in a unique position to have this type of intervention strategy because of the community they serve.
“When we're talking about a campus community, we have a lot of students who are sort of figuring out life for the first time on their own, and that can really sometimes be the start of emergence of mental health symptoms,” she said.
UIPD started using REACH about two years ago. Cambron said one of the benefits of the program is it diverts people in mental health crises from hospitals. She added that the rate of individuals being sent to hospitals has gone down since REACH was introduced.
Cambron said the officers rely on the counselors for guidance as much as the counselors rely on the officers.
“I think if you ask the social workers who are going on the calls if they would go by themselves, we would probably say no because there is that unpredictability,” she said. “And it just feels to us more safe when we have an officer with us.”
A counselor herself, Cambron said she does not have the proper training to do police work.
“We didn't talk about how to respond to a 911 call,” she said. “I worked in acute psychiatric units and residential treatment, and there are certainly crises on those units, but it's not a crisis like I see in the street. And so the level is just different.”
While UIPD integrates the counselors into its staff, ISU will be contracting mental health professionals from the Center for Human Services (CHS), which runs the Behavioral Health Urgent Care facility in downtown Bloomington. Woodruff said a benefit of the program is offering another person for those in crisis to speak to.
“Especially in light of the last few years, there are some students who just aren't going to want to talk to police because of you know, whatever their past experiences or their perceptions of policing,” he said, adding people also may disclose more to officers than they would to the counselor.
While ISU officers are in charge of campus calls, Woodruff said not all of the people are university-affiliated. He said calls sometimes come in about those experiencing homelessness, and he hopes the department will benefit from CHS's experience with these individuals.
“They already have those connections,” he said. “They're already doing that work and elsewhere in the community.”
After ISU gets the ball rolling, Woodruff said he hopes the program can expand to offer services to more than just the students who live on campus. He said “a gap” exists for students who live off campus.
“Students who live on campus, we have RAs and housing staff that see those students every day and can kind of keep an eye on and see how they're how they're doing,” he said. “But the ones who live off campus we don't have those same kind of same kind of touch points to make sure they're getting that care that they need.”
Funding for the co-response program is coming from ISU's housing department and a new student fee.
