Crisis team helps majority of mental health calls without engaging police
CHICAGO — A behavioral health organization working under a state pilot program hopes to expand after finding success in responding to mental health emergencies on the north side without engaging police.
The First-response Alternative Crisis Team offered from the organization Trilogy said it has resolved 94 percent of calls without law enforcement. The 22-member mobile team of crisis counselors, call takers and peer engagement specialists serve the north side communities of Rogers Park, Edgewater, Uptown and West Ridge, as well as Skokie and Evanston.
“We get to see a lot of people on the hardest day of their life, and they don’t have to be alone when they’re going through it,” said program manager Elinor Marboe. “Our goals really are to help people stabilize in the community and to decrease interactions between law enforcement and someone experiencing a mental health crisis whenever possible.”
After an interaction, the FACT team provides 30 days of follow-up care.
In Chicago, where there are roughly 175 mental health calls to 911 each day, there is a similar program called CARE that handles mental health and drug-related overdose calls on the south and west sides.
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Last year, the Rogers Park team launched under a 2022 grant completed more than 4,400 calls. About 1,100 of them involved crisis mobilization, where a crisis counselor and peer are dispatched to a person in need.
Police were not needed in the vast majority of those calls.
“When you look at the sequence that happens in a lot of those officer-involved shootings, a lot of times there’s a moment where actions speed up and the urge to have a really fast resolution is encouraging people to move faster and faster and faster, and a huge part of what we provide is just slowing the scene down,” Marboe said.
The FACT team recently renewed their funding for next year and hope to expand the service area and have calls diverted to them from 911.
For those needing help in FACT’s north side service area, call 1-800-FACT-400. Elsewhere, call the national Suicide and Crisis Lifeline at 988 and the call will be transferred to someone who can help.
May is Mental Health Awareness Month.
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