KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — Candace Allen worries about the criminalization of mental health and addiction. The senior director of adult intensive mental health services said her team at the McNabb Center is doing everything they can to stop that.
"If it's a medical crisis, as soon as that ambulance gets there, the better outcomes for that person," she said. "Same thing with the psychiatric crisis. As soon as we can get somebody to someone, the better we can help them."
That's the goal of the co-response team, which pairs a behavioral health specialist from McNabb with a trained officer from the Knoxville Police Department.
"We're trained to be able to deescalate situations because we're understanding what they're going through," Allen said. "It really does help the person that's in the crisis."
Right now, there are four co-response teams that are able to answer calls seven days a week from 8 a.m. to 11 p.m. Allen would like to see that become 24/7 in the near future.
"The more that we do this, the more that we know how to effectively work better with people and help them through a crisis," she said. "We'd like to get all shifts covered."
KPD said the co-response teams were dispatched to more than 1,500 calls in 2022, mainly for individuals expressing suicidal ideations, welfare checks, general disturbances and suspicious or sick persons.
"Co-responder calls are most often resolved with the person who is the subject of that response being transported to the emergency room for evaluation," KPD said in a statement. "In nearly 50 percent of those calls, the individual is referred to needed resources or service providers. Less than three percent of those calls have resulted in an arrest."
KPD said the calls last an average of 50 minutes and are typically initiated by 9-1-1. The department said officers routinely request co-responders as well.
"They're CIT trained officers, which means they go through a 40-hour training to learn more about what mental illness and addiction are, and then how to respond to that and in a more positive way and helpful way," Allen said. "Together, they really have done some remarkable things in helping people so we just expect that to grow and grow."