SCPD teams up with mental health professionals to serve those in crisis

By Sgt. Jeremy McClure, Community Policing Sergeant

In the Safe Policing for Safe Communities Executive Order Signed by the President recently, direction for police departments to partner with mental health providers when responding to people dealing with mental health, homelessness, and addiction was included. For the Sioux City Police Department, partnering with mental health professionals is business as usual.

“We seek to make these types of partnerships that improve the quality of service we can provide to the people we serve,” said Dutler “We often find that we are leaders in national trends and ahead of other departments in implementing these types of programs.”

One of those partnerships is with the Mobile Crisis Assessment Team or MCAT. The unit is composed of mental health professionals provide by the Sioux Rivers Assessment Regional Health & Disability Center that can respond with law enforcement to the location of the individual in crisis.

In 2019, the Sioux City Police Department documented over 2,800 times in which officers checked the welfare of someone. In many cases, the person being checked on were experiencing a crisis and could benefit from the help of a mental health professional. Initially, Sioux City officers had little available options for helping someone in crisis. Often, the only available option was to take them to a hospital emergency room. The partnership with MCAT has changed that.

“We send out two people trained in mental health and crisis intervention,” said Nicole Eaton, program director for Sioux Rivers. “The assessment team can then determine the level of care the person needs.”

Officers sent to check on a person determine if the matter is a mental health issue. After ensuring the safety of the scene, they will contact the MCAT and request that they come to their location. When MCAT arrives and determines that officers are not needed, then officers leave the person in the care of the MCAT. The team will then assess the person’s need for a higher level of care and if needed, will transport that person to a care facility or make appropriate referrals. The MCAT is available 24 hours a day and will respond within 60 minutes.

The MCAT was developed as part of a mandate from the State of Iowa for mental health service providers to create mobile assessment teams. Sioux Rivers was contracted by Rolling Hills Community Services Region to provide MCAT services.

“We recognized early on that there needed to be a partnership between MCAT and emergency responders in order to make this program work correctly,” said Eaton.

Seeing the opportunity to improve services provided to people in crisis or with mental health problems, the Sioux City Police Department embraced the program and trained all officers to utilize it.

“The chief has been very supportive in implementing the program,” said Officer Andrew Dutler who represents the department on the MCAT committee. “We started working with Sioux Rivers in implementing the MCAT in early 2019 and began utilizing it in November of 2019.”

For years the department has provided training to officers to help people with mental health problems and to better respond to people in emotional crisis. Some officers received additional specialized training to help in its response to people with mental health problems.  

“Although our officers received training on helping people with mental health problems or that are in crisis, the MCAT provides a higher level of specialized care and relieves officers from a non-criminal matter,” added Dutler.

Since partnering with the MCAT, the department called them out 47 times according to statistics compiled by Sioux Rivers. In 26% of the call outs, the person was taken to higher level of care and the other 74% were referred to other resources and diverted from hospital emergency rooms.

“The goal of our program is to not only assess children and adults to help determine safety and whether they need a higher level of care, but to also provide resources and follow-up support so that we can intervene in a cycle in which individuals are continually in crisis without knowing what to do or how to get help,” explained Eaton.

The partnership between the Sioux City Police Department and the MCAT continues to grow. Now with more attention being paid to how law enforcement can better serve those in our community with mental health issues, this partnership will undoubted be looked to as a successful model.

“Recently, we discussed further that with police reform being at the forefront in the nation, that it will be an even more valuable tool for law enforcement to utilize when responding to mental health related calls,” added Eaton. “We are committed to working with SCPD to strengthen that bond and partnership that we have developed over the last year and continue to work together to service our mental health community.”