Non-Profit

Law enforcement often respond to youth experiencing behavioral health crises as first responders to provide connections to emergency care. Unfortunately, law enforcement-only responses to youth in crisis can result in higher risk of involvement in the juvenile justice system and traumatization. Though trainings for law enforcement agencies on behavioral health crisis responses and trauma-informed care are increasing, many of them are not properly trained or do not have the resources available to effectively respond to the needs of youth in crisis.

During this quarterly call with the Innovator Counties, teams from 20 counties were represented. The Stepping Up partner organizations shared their proudest accomplishments and their challenges from this past year and discussed what they are looking forward to in 2024. The partners facilitated discussion among the counties following a parallel structure: counties shared their accomplishments and challenges over the past year and previewed what they're looking forward to next year.

During this quarterly call with the Innovator Counties, teams from 15 counties were represented. The Stepping Up partners followed up on the "fireside chat" with a representative from the New York City Justice Peer Initiative during the last Innovator call to discuss Innovators' work with peers. The partners facilitated discussion about counties' current priorities, challenges, and successes. Common themes included challenges getting to and leveraging data and workforce challenges in behavioral health and justice systems.

The quarterly call for the Law Enforcement Mental Health (LEMH) learning sites was held on schedule and provided a space for representatives from each site to share what they have been working on, updates about their programming, and challenges that they could use perspective on. After each of the learning sites in attendance provided updates about their jurisdictions, the facilitator, Ethan, covered updates from the Council of State Governments side which included upcoming events that learning sites are invited to participate in or will be presenting during.

The LE-MH Learning Sites provide assistance to jurisdictions on the following topics: Case Management, Co-Response, CITs, Crisis Call Response, Crisis Call Diversion, Trainings, Funding, Info-Sharing, Data & Analysis, Policies & Procedures, Collaboration, Homeless Outreach Team, Substance Use, and Leadership.

This is a quarterly call for the law enforcement learning sites to discuss any operational issues or updates. Houston PD, Madison County, Bexar County, Miami Dade, Harris County, and Wichita all joined the call.

The technical assistance (TA) provider met with the Law Enforcement Mental Health (LEMH) learning sites for their quarterly meeting. The discussion started with a round robin of updates, with the various representatives informing their peers and the TAÂ provider what was happening in each of their jurisdictions. The teams asked questions and provided information and linkages to similar work as applicable.

The drop in call for the law enforcement mental health learning sites in December was slightly smaller than usual but still a productive meeting. The peer learning sites in attendance discussed hiring for new positions, recent technical assistance requests they received and responded to, crisis intervention training techniques, and the best resources to provide veterans.

This drop in call for the law enforcement mental health learning sites was smaller than usual but the conversation was still valuable. Representatives from Harris, Miami-Dade, and Bexar counties spoke about their programs, shared updates, and conferred with their peers about some of the issues they have been facing. Staffing continues to be one of the biggest issues for these teams, as is maintaining relationships with facilities where they can drop individuals who need help stabilizing themselves.

This drop in call was relatively uneventful, with most participants joining and not having specific questions for their peers or success stories to share. The host of the meeting did prompt the participants to discuss what they have been working on lately and heard about some site visits and a challenging situation that Wichita found themselves in where an emergency crisis worker was themselves in crisis and needed support. The group discussed their various practices for handling challenging internal mental health needs for officers, clinicians, or other crisis workers.