About a year ago, the Springfield Police Department and Burrell Behavioral Health launched the Mental Health Mobile Response Team, creating a new approach that partners police officers with mental health professionals to respond to people in mental health crises.
To date, hundreds of Springfield citizens have been impacted by this program — some in huge ways, such as being connected with a mental health provider and beginning treatment of some long-standing mental health issues.
Some have been impacted in small, but truly meaningful and potentially life-saving ways. On a day in mid-August, Officer Nathan Thieman and Burrell’s Holli Triboulet gave a person a bag of nonperishable food items. Police had encountered the person the week before. There was no need to arrest the person, but the officer suggested the co-responder team conduct a follow-up visit.
A Springfield Daily Citizen reporter was allowed to ride along last week as Triboulet and Thieman made visits. To protect people’s privacy, the reporter stayed in Triboulet’s vehicle while Triboulet and Thieman did the follow-up visits. Triboulet parked far enough away from each stop so the reporter couldn’t see the person or where they lived.
The reporter observed Thieman, the police department’s Crisis Intervention Team coordinator, retrieving the bag of groceries from his trunk and asked about it. Triboulet said officers carry those food bags in their vehicles and often give them to people in need.
“If you are hungry, your mental health is going to be suffering,” Triboulet said, speaking in general terms and not specifically about the person she had just visited.
‘The job is made for me’
Triboulet is a mental health professional and project director for the co-responder program. Prior to earning her master’s degree in counseling, Triboulet worked for the Branson Police Department for 10 years and then worked in probation and parole.
As project director for a new program, creating protocols and training for the co-responder team mostly fell on Triboulet’s lap.
“This job is made for me. I love it,” she said. “Before this program, (police) might come into contact with that person, leave, and then they may continue to get calls about that person. They might have to go back out and deal with whatever is going on with the person’s crisis or concerns.
“Those situations are representative of the way we deal with behavioral health, which is if you are not dangerous to yourself or others, then no one is going to force you into treatment,” Triboulet continued. “There’s a lot of people that are in that gap where maybe they are not willing. Maybe they have lost hope in getting services. Maybe they don’t realize they are having symptoms of an illness.”
And oftentimes, these are people who will eventually lose their housing, Triboulet said, because they can become unable to be a good tenant and neighbor.
The grant that funds the co-responder program runs out in about a year and a half, Triboulet said.
She and Springfield Police Chief Paul Williams both said they believe the program is making a positive difference and plan to seek out other funding sources so that the program can continue.
“The co-responders are connecting those in crisis or those in need with the appropriate resources and follow-up care,” Williams said in an email. “The program is also diverting those individuals from jail or the hospitals and quickly removing or eliminating the police response to mental health calls, which frees up officers to address crime issues.
“The program is worth continuing,” Williams said. “Program funding would come from public and private partnerships as well as allocated/committed funding from our mental health partner, Burrell Behavioral Health.”
Program allows police to focus on crime
Eric Reece, the Springfield Police Department’s Southside Captain, said having mental health professionals riding with police officers or coming to scenes when officers encounter someone in crisis benefits both officers and the citizens of Springfield.
“The nationwide average is 70 percent of what law enforcement does has nothing to do with law violations,” Reece said. “It’s just we are the face of the government, in that sense. Who do you call when you don’t know who to call? You call 911.
“And we encounter a lot of people that are not doing anything criminally wrong. They’re just a concern to people that see them walking down the street acting erratic. There’s nothing illegal about that, but it causes concern.”
These are the types of police calls in which having a mental health professional there is incredibly helpful, Reece said.
“We’re not the right tool to handle those problems, so we’re trying to bring in the co-responders. That’s their expertise,” he said. “Now we at least have another tool in our toolbox to help.”
Reece explained the three different ways the co-responder program works.
- Sometimes officers respond to a scene and realize someone is in a mental crisis or dealing with some mental issues that are not necessarily related to a law violation. In those cases, the officer can call the Burrell co-responder on duty and the mental health professional will come to the scene.
- Other times, usually during the evening and overnight shifts, the Burrell co-responder rides with the officer throughout the whole shift.
- The co-responder program also does follow-up visits, which is usually Thieman and Triboulet visiting with people officers encountered a day or so prior. These are people who weren’t necessarily breaking the law and weren’t in danger of hurting themselves or others — but the officer noted the person was struggling with mental health issues and could possibly benefit from a visit with a mental health professional.
A mental health co-responder is on duty with the Springfield Police Department 24 hours, Monday-Friday.
Triboulet and Reece would like to see the program expanded so that weekends could also be staffed. When police officers encounter someone experiencing a mental health crisis on the weekends and they are not a danger to themselves or others, they can go on the list for the follow-up calls with Thieman and Triboulet.
“The nation itself kind of realized we are asking police to do things outside of really what we’re mostly trained to do, and we are trained for crisis intervention,” Reece said. “But in the end, this program benefits the people, the citizens that need the help way better than we would ever be able to do alone. The partnership is going to be critical for helping.
“And that’s the point. We can talk about how it helps for call reduction for us, because it frees up time,” he said. “But in the end, it’s a much better product to the person that needs it.”
