CAHOOTS (crisis response)

CAHOOTS (Crisis Assistance Helping Out On The Streets) is a mental health crisis intervention program in Eugene, Oregon. Since 1989 they have responded to Eugene's non-violent mental health 911 calls.[1] In most American cities, police respond to such calls.[1][2] According to the Treatment Advocacy Center in Arlington, VA, at least 25% of people killed in police encounters have serious mental illness.[2][3]

Other cities in the US and other countries have investigated or implemented the concept.[3] In 2015 Stockholm a similar concept was implemented and considered a success.[3] After the George Floyd protests in 2020, several hundred cities in the US had asked CAHOOTS for information about implementing similar programs.[4]

Program

Calls to 911 that are related to addiction, disorientation, mental health crises, and homelessness but which don't pose a danger to others are routed to CAHOOTS.[5] Teams of two responders include a medic and a mental health crisis counselor.[1][2] Responders attend to immediate health issues, de-escalate, and help formulate a plan, which may include finding a bed in a homeless shelter or transportation to a healthcare facility.[5] CAHOOTS is dependent upon the availability of other services: a team may be able to talk a person in crisis into going to a hospital or a homeless shelter, but there must be a hospital or homeless shelter available to accept the person.[4]

CAHOOTS does not handle requests that involve violence, weapons, crimes, medical emergencies, or similarly dangerous situations.[4] Some calls require both CAHOOTS and law enforcement to be called out initially, and sometimes CAHOOTS calls in law enforcement or law enforcement calls in CAHOOTS, for instance in the case of a homeless person who is in danger of being ticketed.[5]

In 2018 they responded to 20% of calls in Eugene and Springfield, Oregon,[1] up from 17% in 2017.[2] In 2018, the program cost $800,000, as compared to $58 million for the police.[2] Some of these calls would not have been responded to by the police.[4]

The internal organization operates by in a non-hierarchical, consensus-oriented model.[4] As of 2020, most staff were paid US $18 per hour.[4] Pairs of staff members, usually involving one person with a medical license and another with experience in street outreach or mental health support, respond together to all calls.[4] Until 2020, the service did not operate around the clock.[4]

Replicating the model

Many places struggle to implement this model because it is dependent upon the existence of appropriate social services in the area.[4] One director at CAHOOTS asks, "Where are you going to bring someone if not to the hospital or the jail?"[4]

History

CAHOOTS was founded in 1989 by the Eugene Police Department and White Bird Clinic, a nonprofit mental health crisis intervention initiative that had been in existence since 1969 as an "alternative for those who didn't trust the cops."[5] From its founding, White Bird Clinic had an informal working relationship with local law enforcement.[5] CAHOOTS formalized the relationship.[6][5] The name, an acronym for Crisis Assistance Helping Out On The Streets, was chosen because the White Bird Clinic "was now 'in cahoots' with the police."[5]

References
  1. Villafranca, Omar (23 October 2019). "An alternative to police: Mental health team responds to emergencies in Oregon". www.cbsnews.com. Retrieved 2020-06-09.
  2. Elinson, Zusha (2018-11-24). "When Mental-Health Experts, Not Police, Are the First Responders". Wall Street Journal. ISSN 0099-9660. Retrieved 2020-06-09.
  3. Samuel, Sigal (2019-07-01). "Calling the cops on someone with mental illness can go terribly wrong. Here's a better idea". Vox. Retrieved 2020-06-09.
  4. Gerety, Rowan Moore (December 2020). "An Alternative to Police That Police Can Get Behind". The Atlantic. ISSN 1072-7825. Retrieved 2020-12-29.
  5. Parafiniuk-Talesnick, Tatiana. "In Cahoots: How the unlikely pairing of cops and hippies became a national model". The Register-Guard. Retrieved 2020-06-09.
  6. Andrew, Scottie (July 5, 2020). "This town of 170,000 replaced some cops with medics and mental health workers. It's worked for over 30 years". CNN. Retrieved 2020-07-06.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.