LAS VEGAS (KTNV) — There's a growing movement across the country of having police officers and crisis workers respond together to calls for service involving mental health and substance use. The goal is to break the cycle of repeat calls for service while offering long-term solutions for folks in crisis.
That's the philosophy that drives the City of Henderson's new Mobile Crisis Intervention Team. It's made up of two police officers, two licensed clinicians, and a navigator to help manage cases.
"Our law enforcement officers are reviewing the prior day's call log. Essentially, what they're doing is reviewing cases that came through 911 or 311 that have a behavioral health crisis component, an overdose, or some type of mental health/substance abuse crisis," said Lisa Kelso, a licensed clinician tasked with creating and leading the new team.
Once the team goes through the call log, they make contact with the individuals involved in calls for service that have a behavioral health or substance use component by calling them or visiting them at home or wherever they're most comfortable. They connect them with whatever they need, not only in that moment of crisis, but continue to follow up with them after.
"We have shelters. We're connecting people with food pantries. We're connecting people with primary care doctors and appointments, therapists, psychiatric prescribers such as psychiatrists, mental health nurse practitioners, connecting people with detox facilities so they can understand what's going on with their bodies, substance use counselors, peer support," said Stephanie Nickson, one of the licensed clinical social workers on the team.
"We're hoping that we get them linked to resources that help them so that we don't have repeated calls to 911 or 311 for non-emergency services," Kelso said.
She said the team is helpful in multiple ways by providing the clients with personalized care in the hopes of getting to the root of the issues they are facing so they are not repeatedly putting a strain on emergency services. By the same token, she said this helps free up officers to focus on public safety calls.
This is part of a nationwide trend of communities creating police-mental health collaboration programs.
"We need a cross-disciplinary approach, more and more with so many different policy issues that we're facing. Behavioral health, mental health, public safety is certainly one of those examples where we can offer more services to the community by working together," said Lisa Corrado, the City of Henderson's community development and service director.
Officials said departments are increasingly realizing that incarceration or hospitalization isn't always the answer to a person in crisis and that having a clinician on scene can help deescalate a situation.
"It is really awesome to be able to bring our skillset as clinicians to the front lines outside of having to go to a therapist's office or having to be in an emergency department and things like that. Meeting clients where they are in that crisis moment," Nickson said.
Nickson has about a decade of experience in various settings as a clinical social worker but she felt like she wasn't reaching all the people who needed help. Through her new full-time role as part of the Mobile Crisis Intervention Team, she said she's found a way to reach more people by coming straight to them in their time of need. She said this helps reduce barriers and combats the stigma surrounding mental health by approaching the interactions with compassion.
"I think it's really important to bring the skills and tool set of a clinician to the front of a law enforcement interaction. We have different training. We have different approaches and oftentimes, hearing [a] clinical social worker or seeing someone in a helper role in a different way can oftentimes deescalate a situation in and of itself," Nickson said.
Henderson's new team was funded through a Department of Justice grant. It began its work on May 9, staying busy from the get-go.
"Since we started May 9, we've received over 100 referrals. So, we have had over 100 referrals but how many contacts we've made with individuals is possibly around 125, 130," Kelso said.
The team said those numbers are a testament to the need in the area, which has certainly skyrocketed since the pandemic, which led to spikes in substance use and mental health crises. According to the Southern Nevada Health District, the City of Henderson saw 64 fatal overdoses in 2022 compared to 52 in 2019. Opioids were involved in a majority of those.
"I think COVID really showed us that mental health is bigger than we thought. The isolation, the increase in substance use as a coping skill to get through a lot of unknown and fear and anxiety, has really come to the frontlines of what we're looking at, the opioid crisis specifically," Nickson said.
The Department of Justice grant that funded Henderson's Mobile Crisis Intervention Team lasts three years. The team is requesting the city use opioid settlement funds to sustain the team further into the future.
"We've had some where we've [had] some great success. We've had some individuals that decline our services. So what we do is we offer our number so if they change their mind or need something, they can reach out to one of the clinician," Kelso said.
