Providence announces partners in designing crisis response team to aid police

Providence is one step closer to establishing a crisis response team to field 911 calls involving mental health and substance abuse.

On Thursday, the city announced its partners in designing the program: The Providence Center, which offers mental health and addiction treatment; and Family Service of Rhode Island, a nonprofit social service organization.

Mayor Jorge Elorza said that the aim of the initiative, in part, is to "free up police officer and Fire Department time so they can do the work that only they are trained to do."

"We hope that this program will relieve some of the pressures put on police simply because they're the most visible resource available and the only resource to send in these situations," he added.

According to a report earlier this year from the Center for Justice & Safety Finance, a group contracted to conduct an operational review of the Public Safety Department, more than half of calls initiating a police response in recent decades were for noncriminal, nonviolent matters.

More: Providence weighs crisis-response team for mental-health calls

Providence police already have social workers ride in cop cars on a routine basis, though according to Public Safety Commissioner Steven Pare, there are typically only one or two available at any given moment.

"What's existing is very small and it's been very small, but we on the Police Department side love to have social workers with us," he said. "They're more capable and they have a lot more training to deal with folks that are struggling. We don't have enough of them."

Pare said a crisis response program would build on the department's existing work, provide more resources, and create a system through which social workers could take on calls " perhaps eventually independent of the police response, and as quick if not quicker than the police response."

Tiffney Davidson-Parker, president and chief operating officer of The Providence Center, said her organization, along with Family Service of Rhode Island, police and other stakeholders, will develop a series of recommendations to help determine how the program should look.

Discussions will include a steering committee comprised of "people with lived experience, community activists, behavioral health and social service providers, and representatives of public safety agencies," Davidson-Parker said.

Sarah Kelly-Palmer, vice president of Family Service of Rhode Island, said the aim is "to come up with recommendations that improve individual outcomes, reduce repeated [crises] in the community, reduce public safety -- both police and fire -- involvement in crisis response, as well as reduce stigma and racism."

Elorza offered no immediate details on the specific criteria that would be used to determine whether a call is handled by a crisis response team or solely police, though he noted that $600,000 has already been earmarked for the program.

"As soon as the plan and the recommendations are made to use, we have resources at the ready that we'll use to start implementing this," he said.

This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: Providence announces partners in designing crisis response team to aid police

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