Mental health resources added to several local police departments

Hegira Health currently has established partnerships with more than 10 police departments in Western Wayne County to provide Mobile Crisis Co-Response services for individuals experiencing behavioral health crises in the community. Livonia, Canton, Westland, Redford, and Northville/Plymouth have made significant investments in these programs by funding embedded Hegira trained clinicians within their police departments. The embedded clinician, who is a licensed, master’s level social worker, counselor or psychologist are housed within their respective police department and are available for co-response crisis intervention, as well as to provide follow-up for individuals and coordinate them with ongoing services to avoid future crisis. Inadequate mental health services across the country means police are usually the first to respond to someone in a mental health and/or substance abuse crisis. It's estimated that those situations make up at least 20% of police calls for service. When done right, advocates say, mental health crisis teams remove police from responding, unless absolutely necessary. Since January of 2019, Hegira Health's Mobile Crisis Co-Response teams have diverted 88% of the individuals they had contact with from inpatient hospitalization. A similar intervention in Inkster reduced calls for service to their police department from Adult Foster Care homes by 40%.