A new dispatch team focused on responding to mental health calls is forming through a partnership between the Waco Police Department and the Heart of Texas Behavioral Health Network.
Called the Heart of Texas Crisis Call Diversion Program, the three-person team will consist of a program manager overseeing the effort, a call taker and an outreach worker who will respond to calls in the field if necessary. All three will be licensed social workers or counselors.
The Behavioral Health Network is interviewing candidates for the three positions, which are funded through a four-year, $2 million block grant administered by the state, and will debut the program as soon as possible.
The dispatch team will technically be Behavioral Health Network employees but will be housed in their own space in the dispatch center near the top floor of Waco Police Department headquarters, said Stacey Steger, program director for Behavioral Health Network outpatient crisis services. When a 911 call comes in, initial dispatchers will screen the call and if it is a mental health call, assign it to the crisis diversion team, who will then speak to the caller and determine if an outreach worker needs to be dispatched.
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Susie Murray, emergency communications manager for the Waco Police Department, left, and Stacey Steger, program director for Heart of Texas Behavioral Health Network outpatient crisis services, stand in the police dispatch center. A new team focused on responding to mental health crisis calls will operate in its own space there, in a state-funded partnership between the two organizations.
The three-person team that will start the Heart of Texas Crisis Call Diversion Program will be based in their own space at the Waco Police dispatch center at department headquarters on Pine Avenue.
Steger said the Behavioral Health Network will offer various services to the callers on a case-by-case basis, such as follow-ups and other resources.
A significant share of the department’s more than 5,000 weekly calls are from people in the middle of a mental health crisis, said Susie Murray, emergency communications manager for the Waco Police Department. She said not all mental health calls are extreme, and many callers just need someone to talk to.
“We have suicide calls. We have calls of people just being in crisis, sometimes it’s just them needing someone to talk to,” Murray said. “It’s not necessarily the extreme ends of crisis of ‘I want to kill myself.’ Sometimes it’s just people are having a really hard time. Sometimes it’s a parent needing assistance with their child as far as parenting.”
Waco police dispatchers soon will be able to route mental health crisis calls that do not need a response from a uniformed officer to a team of social workers and counselors in the Heart of Texas Crisis Call Diversion Program.
Murray said the department has looked to other cities with mental health response teams to see what has worked and what hasn’t to fine tune Waco’s program. She said the process included traveling to Denver and Austin to observe the mental health teams in those departments.
Murray said there is a huge need in the community for a crisis diversion team like this, and said within the last 10 years, awareness for mental health has grown significantly.
“You can turn on the news any time and see that there’s a need for it,” Murray said. “And no one knows better than the police department, with the amount of times that police officers are having to respond to mental and behavioral health related calls, where if there was another resource available, that that would have been a better option than to send a uniformed officer.”
Stacey Steger, program director for Heart of Texas Behavioral Health Network outpatient crisis services, left, and Susie Murray, emergency communications manager for the Waco Police Department, said the new Heart of Texas Crisis Call Diversion Program will help people experiencing a mental health crisis get the resources they need.
Steger said the plan for the behavioral health team is to start small to test the efficacy of the program. The team could grow in the future depending on the availability of funding and how well the program works.
The behavioral health team will work from 3 to 11 p.m. on weekdays, identified as the time when the most behavioral health related calls are received. On weekends, the Behavioral Health Network’s Mobile Crisis Outreach Team will remain available. The Mobile Crisis Outreach Team operates in six Heart of Texas counties and offers mental health resources to individuals in need.
The Mobile Crisis Outreach Team can be reached 24/7 at 1-866-752-3451.
Waco police dispatchers soon will be able to route mental health crisis calls that do not need a response from a uniformed officer to a team of social workers and counselors in the Heart of Texas Crisis Call Diversion Program.
The three-person team that will start the Heart of Texas Crisis Call Diversion Program will be based in their own space at the Waco Police dispatch center at department headquarters on Pine Avenue.
The three-person team that will start the Heart of Texas Crisis Call Diversion Program will be based in their own space at the Waco Police dispatch center at department headquarters on Pine Avenue.
