With the Marcus Alert system for responding to mental health crises still several years away from implementation, Albemarle County is rolling out a new pilot program to improve response and outcomes in the hundreds of such calls received each year.

“In response to the county’s overall interest in moving outside of its mandated parameters and into community wellbeing and community risk reduction, we decided to create a non-responder model to identify the best ways to take advantage of the expertise of fire rescue, PD and social services to respond to mental health calls in a different way,” said Kaki Dimock, Albemarle’s chief human services officer in a joint interview with Albemarle Police Chief Sean Reeves and Albemarle Fire Rescue Chief Dan Eggleston on Charlottesville Right Now.

The new initiative, called Hearts Team, will launch in late June with three members assigned to the team: a police officer, EMT and social service worker.

“They’ll be sort of able to get rid of the existing obligations they have in their departments to be able to focus on this work and start responding in a different kind of way,” Dimock said.

Currently, when a call for service comes in to 911, dispatchers attempt to determine the nature of the emergency

“Depending on the nature of the call for service, PD and potentially fire rescue will come out at the same time or within proximity of one another,” said Col. Reeves. “The police department will make sure that the scene is safe for fire rescue to come in if it involves somebody who has overdosed on pills. Sometimes it involves people with a firearm. Sometimes it’s just somebody who’s in crisis and just needs somebody to talk to that doesn’t require additional resources.”

Reeves noted that 85-90 percent of Albemarle police officers are crisis intervention trained, but that doesn’t address the fact that these calls are time and resource intensive.

“There are circumstances where people are either in an altered state due to a combination of pills, substance abuse, or in that much of a crisis where they’re not responding. And these calls can take hours to resolve,” said Reeves. 

Eggleston pointed out that sometimes what appears to be a mental health crisis may be another type of medical emergency such as a diabetic suffering from hypoglycemia.

“They could be extremely violent and really appear to be intoxicated,” Eggleston said, explaining that the proper treatment can quickly address the issue.

“That’s one of the reasons you want to have a good experienced paramedic on scene to really assess that situation, not make the mistake of, this person’s a criminal,” he said.

Under the pilot program, the Hearts team will assess whether to send police, EMTs or social services.

“They may ask for additional backup and resources in all three areas,” said Dimock. “At some point they may reach out to [Region 10]. They may end up actually transporting to a hospital or to the jail or asking for transport to the hospital or jail.”

Dimock says a review of data shows calls for behavioral health are spread out evenly throughout the week, so the Hearts Team will initially work Monday to Friday during regular work hours.

“We’re going to test it and see if we can have an impact, see what kinds of other gaps in the system of care we’re confronted with,” she said. 

“I’m very optimistic that we can truly make a difference here because we want to make sure that the person gets the right service,” said Eggleston. 

Reeves says if a weapon is involved, the police will always ensure public safety. But he says the larger issue boils down to a fundamental question: what is law enforcement’s role in mental health calls for service that might include someone who is suicidal or an elderly person with dementia.

“Is a community expectation that we send men and women with badges and guns to handle somebody who’s having a mental health crisis,” he asked. “That’s the question that I look at from law enforcement. And the answer to that is this non-responder model.”

Listen to the full interview with Col. Sean Reeves, Chief Dan Eggleston and Chief Kaki Dimock here.