Brooklyn Park social workers and paramedics are now responding to some 911 calls

CATHY WURZER: Mental health crises, as you all know, are difficult. And that's an understatement. When you or a loved one is in a mental health crisis, it can be tough to know where to turn. And if 911 is called, armed police officers might respond. And that can escalate the situation with dire consequences.

Brooklyn Park, Minnesota is trying a different approach. Since December, a pilot program has sent social workers and paramedics out on some 911 calls. We wanted to hear more about how this effort is going. So we've called Leah Kaiser, she's the Human Services director at Hennepin County Behavioral Health. And Chief Mark Bruley, he's the chief of police in Brooklyn Park. Welcome to you both.

MARK BRULEY: Thank you, Cathy.

LEAH KAISER: Thank you. Good to see you.

CATHY WURZER: Thanks, Leah. Thanks for being here. Thank you, chief. Say, I'm curious. How does this work exactly? Are calls still going in through 911 as the standard dispatch system, is that right, chief?

MARK BRULEY: Yeah, absolutely. So nothing's changed from the calls that are coming in. We recognized numerous years ago that the volume of calls involving mental health crisis were rising to the fact of about the last six years, we've seen twice as many calls in the 911 system for crisis response.

What has changed is who is responding in some of those calls. So people will-- who may need assistance traditionally call 911. They still call 911. But there is now well-trained dispatchers who are trained to look for indicators where this may not need the police response and can send an alternative response, which is this group.

CATHY WURZER: And before I get to you, Leah, chief, what are some of the indicators that this is not a garden variety call that this might need some mental health help?

MARK BRULEY: Well, I mean, it can look a lot of different ways to the dispatcher. But one of the things that really is taxing for police officers that are responding is we are limited resources. So we've actually never seen the shortage in law enforcement officers that we do now. I don't know of a police agency that is fully staffed. We're not. We're down about 12%, 13% in our sworn officer staff.

So calls are up. And our ability to respond to them is down. That's one of the things that's driving this for Brooklyn Park. But the bigger thing for us is better outcomes. So a lot of these calls, people-- there's no crime that occurred. And there's no immediate threat. And so the question we really ask, is there a need to send a police officer out there to deal with? Or are they better served doing something else?

And the big, I guess, return on our investment that we see is there's just a better care for the person calling 911. The people that are going out in this ART team are better equipped to have better outcomes for the individuals that are in crisis or need help, especially when it doesn't involve a dangerous situation, it doesn't require a police officer to have to show up. So I think that's the big win that we're seeing from the perspective of the police department.

CATHY WURZER: Say, Leah, you-- I'm assuming that you are training some of these social workers and paramedics? Is that right?

LEAH KAISER: Yeah, we-- so I'm in Hennepin County Behavioral Health. I'm the director there. And our teams are really intentional around working across our various partners, so Chief Bruley, working with our police officers and helping them understand what's the right response, also working directly within our dispatch so our Hennepin County Sheriff's Office Dispatch Center that is triaging and then deploying the appropriate resource, we provide training, and support, and frankly, partnership and open communication across these various partners that are all working within the emergency response system.

And we've been planning for this alternative response for the better part of over a year or even two, where we've all been coming together, pulling data, using our various areas of expertise to try to understand what's needed, what do our residents need, what works within the system. And then we started deploying this team with the mental health professional and the community paramedic just starting in December.

We've only been involved in directly handling calls from dispatch for about the last four months. But the planning and the training has been in process for a very long time to try to make sure that we were careful, we were intentional, and we were keeping our residents safe.

CATHY WURZER: And what does it look like when the team is called into a situation? What do they do, initially?

LEAH KAISER: I think the first thing that they do is listen to the resident and see what are the most pressing needs that, from the person's perspective, are being presented. One of the most important aspects from this initiative is to follow the lead of the resident, of the person that's in the crisis.

Instead of directing a person to a resource that maybe they don't want or aren't ready for, really sitting slowly, and listening, and using time to understand what that person is describing. And I think a lot of times, what ends up happening is what's on the surface is certainly a pressing issue for the resident.

But as they start listening to what is being described, lots of other things start to show up. And so their capacity and their ability to listen to what's being expressed is really what it looks like in the field. And then they go from there. So what I think our data showed and what our teams know is that what shows up in the first part of the call may or may not be really the thing that's necessary at the time.

So if they enter a scene, they start listening, they find out well the person might need help with food, or housing, or getting back on medications. Or how can we help the person get into a safe location right then. So it takes a variety of turns once you're on site. But I think the most important thing in the field is to listen to the resident and then use the collective tools between the community paramedic and the social worker to come up with what's the most appropriate plan in the moment.

CATHY WURZER: And chief, this is a bit of an experiment, obviously. Did you worry-- or are you have you worried about losing some control perhaps by sending out folks other than police officers?

MARK BRULEY: No, not at all. And actually, I know when Leah reached out to us and kind of teed up this conversation about doing something different, we jumped on it. And one of the reasons is we have, for a long time, been expressing our concerns that the mental health issue, certainly in Brooklyn Park and across the country, is concerning.

911, specifically police officers, seem to be tasked with dealing with it. And they're ill equipped. And we're not getting great outcomes. And it's a couple of indicators that one is the amount of police repeat calls to same addresses for mental health issues because we're not resolving them, nor are we equipped to resolve them.

And so that becomes very frustrating for me and my staff that keep going to the same address. Both it's taken up resources. And two, we're not getting the appropriate outcome for our resident. And so I think as soon as we heard that there is some sort of alternative way to look at this, we jumped on board just because of the issues that we've experienced.

CATHY WURZER: I understand this program deals specifically with nonviolent calls. Can you see using a social worker and a paramedic in a more fraught situation, perhaps more serious situation?

MARK BRULEY: Yeah, Cathy, that's actually a great question. And we do. So for the listeners to understand, there's low level calls that are dispatched directly from our dispatcher right to this mental health unit or the Alternative Response Unit. And they respond right to the address.

And so this is a call that may be similar to maybe at a group home, someone not eating, or someone being disruptive. So there's no threat of violence. There's underlying mental health issues. And this is data that's mined out through a dispatcher, where they know it's very low risk.

One thing to be aware of is our police officers are aware that that unit is being dispatched. So they know the call exists. And they know that the alternative response team is responding to that address. And so they can listen for them. They're on our radio channel. So when they call for help or get on the radio, a police officer can immediately respond right to that address and provide assistance. And that has happened.

The other thing is there are calls where, this is also equally just as common, and that is calls where there is some sign of crisis where there is a danger. Maybe the individual has a knife or an individual has just really violent tendencies. And that is not a call that's going to go directly to the alternative response team.

But they are also on the radio system. And so when they hear a police officer dispatched to these calls. They also respond. And they sit down the block. And what we're seeing now from our police officers, it is very common for them to ask the alternative response team to come up and step inside.

Because once the police officer goes in and makes the scene safe, then they can bring in that resource. And then again, they have the talent to be able to intervene.

CATHY WURZER: All right, I wish I had more time with you both. Very interesting. Thank you so much.

MARK BRULEY: Yeah, thank you.

CATHY WURZER: Leah Kaiser. Leah Kaiser is Human Services Director at Hennepin County Behavioral Health. Mark Bruley is the chief of police in Brooklyn Park.