ALLENTOWN, Pa. – A special committee of the Allentown City Council met Wednesday to hear other municipalities’ experiences with a joint response public safety model for emergency calls regarding mental health issues.
In a collaborative public safety model, mental health professionals can work directly with police and, in some cases, accompany police on police calls.
On March 20, the Council voted to establish a task force to provide a framework for understanding, implementing and evaluating the Joint Response Program. The committee was formed after the Council had discussed the topic multiple times dating back to July 2020.
Lansdale Police Chief Michael Trail said the department implemented the joint response program for four main reasons: to reduce use of force instances in mental illness cases, get assistance in de-escalation situations, respond to community needs and reduce repeat calls for service.
“Overall, like every community, our area has seen a surge in mental health-related service requests during the pandemic,” Trail said. “We’ve also seen a surge in opioid overdoses. Our area has been greatly impacted by the opioid epidemic.”
“We started with a very basic program,” Trail said, “and in 2020 we realized we had a problem. We realized our patrol units were not prepared to handle the mental health calls they were encountering every day. We could go out and triage the incidents, but there was no follow-up care. We didn’t have the capacity to connect people to the services they needed.”
Traill added that he understands the program requires an expenditure of funds, but it is an investment in the community.
“This program will save money by reducing the financial burden on the police department,” he said. “Officers will have fewer liability issues that could be costly to the city council. There is a payoff to this investment.”
Christopher T. Doheny, co-responder for Upper Bucks County, said he is working with the nine police departments in the county.
“We’re getting a lot of different calls, especially related to drugs, alcohol and mental health,” Doheny said.
“Officers can contact us directly by radio or if we go out on our own to follow up, we can contact them. We have the ability to let officers know by radio that we’re at the address,” he said.
Doheny said rescue workers are wearing bulletproof vests, but many of their calls come in as follow-up calls.
“A big part of this effort is building relationships, not just with the police department, but with the community and community organizations,” Doheny said.
Chairwoman CeCe Gerlach said the special committee is scheduled to meet again in July.
If Allentown were to adopt such a program, it would likely work with mental health professionals from Pine Brook Family Answers.
