By Ryan McClinton | Special to the OBSERVER
When my sister was having a mental health crisis, I had to ask myself: Where in Sacramento can I get her the care she needs? I realized my only option was to call the police. This scared me, and I could see fear on my mom’s face, too.
As a Black family, we worry about interactions with police, especially in situations that police are not best equipped to handle. We’ve heard about and witnessed circumstances where police are called to assist someone having a mental health episode and that person ends up arrested, injured or killed.
Instead of calling 9-1-1, I was able to call the police lieutenant directly and ask for a responder with training for these situations. The responding police officers kept their distance and didn’t escalate, but they were not able to help, either. I eventually took my sister to a hospital to receive care. We avoided a harmful outcome, but we need a system that is better set up for people experiencing mental health crises to access treatment. Most people making that call don’t have the knowledge and connections that I’ve gained through my advocacy work.
In my role with the nonprofit organization Public Health Advocates, I work to build support for creating alternative responses to our traditional 9-1-1 emergency response system. We want each type of emergency to be matched with an appropriate responder. A person having a mental health crisis needs a trained mental health professional – not police, fire or emergency medical services.
My team does this work statewide in California and locally. We have been trying to work with the City of Sacramento to increase transparency in our 9-1-1 system and create alternative response programs. This is hard work, and progress can be slow.
That’s why it’s so invigorating to learn that 88% of California registered voters want major changes to our emergency response system. This statistic comes from an opinion poll conducted by the Institute of Governmental Studies at the University of California, Berkeley that Public Health Advocates released in late May. The poll also shows 69% of California voters want behavioral health professionals to respond to non-life threatening situations.
In the Sacramento region, the poll shows 72% of voters say police and sheriff’s departments are least equipped to handle situations involving mental health. More regional and statewide data is available at: phadvocates.org/911.
To find data-driven solutions, we must look closely at call data from 9-1-1 dispatch centers and study the demand. How often are police or firefighters responding to mental health crises or homelessness? Studying that data is not easy because 9-1-1 call data is not publicly available in California.
At a recent Sacramento City Council meeting, my team asked city leaders to give us the data. Together with our independent research partners at the University of California, Davis, we have grant funding to provide these analyses free of charge to the city. If we get that data, the researchers can give us all a clearer picture of why Sacramentans are calling 9-1-1 and what kinds of services they are getting in response.
The City of Sacramento has formed the Department of Community Response as a way to employ alternative responses to emergencies, but it hasn’t been able to realize its full potential yet. If given the resources it needs to thrive, this department can be a blueprint for other cities and a key part of Mayor Darrell Steinberg’s legacy.
The stakes have never been higher. We hope that the city will continue taking steps forward on emergency response. Providing our research team with call data from their 9-1-1 dispatch center would be a great place to start.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Ryan McClinton is a program manager with Public Health Advocates in Sacramento. Public Health Advocates works with communities to establish policies, systems and norms that promote health and racial justice.