by Grace Chai ·
Friday, August 23, 2024
Two years ago, the Harvard Police Department added a mental health professional to its staff to support police response to crisis calls. Through this co-response program shared with Stow, the department has reduced arrests and hospitalizations, saving thousands of dollars in criminal justice and health care costs.
In addition to optimizing police resources and time, the co-response program prevents the cycle of crisis and incarceration and can prevent the unnecessary hospitalizations that can trigger more stress for people in crisis. In 2023, Police Chief James Babu called the second year of the co-clinician program “immensely beneficial for our community” in the town’s annual report.
“As a matter of fact, it’s so successful that we’re actually thinking about even adding maybe an additional co-clinician to … both communities,” he said in an interview with the Press. “I think integrating the co-clinician to police operations just offers numerous benefits and enhances both public safety and mental health outcomes in a community.”
Co-response, an aspect of jail diversion, involves embedding a clinician in a police department to assist with behavioral health-related needs. Often, jail diversion calls involve people experiencing mental health crises. National research found that 7 to 10% of all police calls involve a person with a mental disorder, though the Massachusetts Department of Mental Health reports that some local Massachusetts police departments have reported percentages twice these averages.
The co-clinician responds to mental health crises, substance abuse emergencies, and other situations that require a mental health professional’s expertise in crisis de-escalation and counseling. The Massachusetts Department of Mental Health funds grants for jail diversion programs (JDP), including Harvard’s, which the Police Department just renewed for another four years.
Since the program was implemented, the JDP calls in Harvard increased 50% in 2023 compared to 2022.
Co-clinician Kristin Normandin, who started working with the Harvard Police Department in August 2022, responds to these mental health-related calls. A service call is designated as a JDP call whenever police ask the co-clinician to accompany them, according to Babu. He said that Normandin’s role has expanded “above and beyond” what he initially thought it would be. “There are so many more layers that we involve her in, in just resource optimization with the town. It just increased better community relations.”
The Police Department gradually incorporated Normandin into responses beyond the expected well-being checks, seeing how her experience as a mental health professional could help in other potentially traumatic or stressful situations. She arrives at car collision scenes, soothing nerves and checking on people’s mental well-being. She helps elderly people work through the psychological stress of a financial scam. She communicates with the Council on Aging. She speaks to community members after a traumatic event, bringing compassion and mental health training to the situation.
Normandin describes her role as a “true crisis job,” one that combines quick decision making and her experience as a therapist and social worker to help people through mental health crises. On a typical work day, Normandin might respond to a 911 call or conduct a follow-up with someone who had a crisis. When she is needed, she rides along with the police officer from the police department to the scene. After the officer does a quick assessment for safety, she speaks to the person in crisis.
Normandin says that the goal of co-response is to keep people safe, and she considers community resources—in addition to the resources she has—important to a person’s safety plan.
“Whether that’s family, whether that’s the Council on Aging, whether that’s a provider, let’s connect them to the people in their community that they love and trust so they can stay home and work through their crisis safely and privately at home. We really want to avoid that emergency room at all costs,” Normandin said.
Adding a co-clinician to the police force enhances both public safety and mental health outcomes, according to Babu, as the clinician is able to conduct mental health assessments and connect people to resources. “A lot of times, it reduces the need for police to handle situations beyond their level of training,” he said.
“And I think Kristin’s presence really reinforces our message,” added Babu. “I’ve noticed … that people are putting their guard down, like, ‘OK, this is gonna be OK.’”
Two million arrests in the U.S. each year involve people with serious mental illness, and people with untreated mental illness are 16 times more likely to die in a violent confrontation with law enforcement, according to the federal Bureau of Justice. Co-response has been shown to reduce the likelihood of adverse outcomes for people in crisis, such as arrest or injury. Studies show that co-response is also more likely to result in referrals to case managers, outpatient treatment centers, and mental health organizations.
“I think it helps to see someone unarmed, [not] uniformed,” Normandin said. To illustrate her point, she points to her flat sneakers. “I’m just going to show up and [say], ‘Hi, I’m Kristin. I’m here to help. Tell me what’s going on today.’ And the minute that rapport is established between clinician and the client, the officer can kind of take a few steps back and give some space.”
She also feels safe doing her job with the police and has integrated well into both the Stow and Harvard police departments. While it took time for Normandin to “embed,” or establish trust among her colleagues, Detective Charlie Genetti and Officer Tim Schaeffer agree that the addition of a co-clinician to the team has been beneficial. Calls go more smoothly, and there are more options for de-escalating a mental health crisis other than a Section 12, which is when an individual is brought to the hospital against their will because they may harm themselves or others.
“It does take time to, what they call embed, into your department, to establish trust and rapport, and we recognize, as co-response clinicians, that we’re putting a big ask on our officers,” Normandin said. “We’re an unarmed civilian. We’re asking you to take us in a car to a scene where it could be unpredictable, to trust us that we know how to do our jobs, and to give us a little space.” She added, “It does take some time; officers want to see those calls happen, and then they feel a lot more relaxed about the process.”
While not every arrest or hospitalization is divertible, Babu cites the overall success of Harvard’s jail diversion program.
According to the Stow-Harvard Co-Response JDP Annual Report, published in 2023, 11 people in crisis were diverted from arrest and into treatment with the help of the co-clinician. It saved the criminal justice system $32,890, which averages about $2,990 per arrest.
Eighty-five people were diverted from unnecessary hospital admissions that same year, with an average of about seven emergency room diversions per month. Emergency department diversions totaled health care savings of $229,500 for patients, and combined savings with arrest diversions equaled $262,390.
According to the Massachusetts Department of Mental Health, JDP can alleviate jail overcrowding, reduce unnecessary prosecution and court costs, and reduce incarceration costs. Police resources can be reallocated to different resources, freeing officers up to do other tasks.
“Our numbers show that it’s creating quite an impact,” Babu said. “And my take is, if you could … change one life around for the better, I think it’s worth its weight in gold.”