By Macy Byars, Nebraska Public Media News
This Mental Health Awareness month, the Lincoln Police Department is celebrating a successful start to its co-responder program, a team-up with mental health professionals that could decrease the use of jails and emergency medical services.
Lincoln announced plans for the co-responder program in September, with a partnership between LPD and CenterPointe, a mental health and substance abuse care clinic that conducts street outreach and crisis response. It began in early March.
CenterPointe’s Senior Director of Community Response Amber Dirks said co-responders listen to police radio or respond to calls from officers, then step into mental health-related situations. From there, they conduct a risk assessment, deescalate, then offer support and resources.
“Sometimes, they remain in the community, and then they communicate with our crisis response team,” Dirks said. “Some people choose to go to an off-site agency. That could be the hospital, that could be Keya House (a hospital diversion program), that could be the Voluntary Crisis Response Center. We’ve also taken people to CenterPointe to get engaged in services right away.”
Not all the crisis care centers are directly LPD- or CenterPointe affiliated, but Dirks said Lincoln’s crisis centers are well-connected. The co-responders follow up after initial contact to make sure people are in touch with mental-health resources.
Co-responders have responded to about 100 calls since the program started in early March.
“March 3 until today, 63% of those individuals did deescalate and remained in the community setting,” Dirks said. “Twenty-three percent of individuals were taken off site. But of those 23%, 69% voluntarily went to another agency or facility.”
Dirks says mental health crisis care needs are increasing in Lincoln.
“We’ve seen a significant increase in the number of individuals experiencing mental health crisis and really needing more of that support,” Dirks said.
LPD’s call log reflects that. Last year, 12% of calls to LPD were mental health-related, totaling to about 4,000. Dirks said CenterPointe also saw a 17% increase in outpatient services, which includes the crisis response unit.
Calls to Nebraska’s suicide and crisis lifeline have also been increasing, especially in Lincoln and the southeastern area of the state.
Dirks attributed the increased need for crisis response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I think the social isolation and not really having those healthy social outlets for that period of time had a significant impact,” Dirks said. “And now, it’s the aftermath of it, with managing the anxieties and the depression. I think there was an increase in substance use when people were in isolation, so we’re just seeing a lot of that come through now.”
Lincoln’s co-responders are not uniformed, but they do receive some law enforcement training. Dirks oversees two full-time co-responders, and one more position is open. The program is grant funded through October 2026.
There are many different co-responder models, but they all aim to decrease the use of overburdened emergency departments and prevent harmful encounters with law enforcement.
For example, officers in Kansas’ Overland Park Police Department felt more prepared to deal with calls involving mental disorders after a co-responder was available. Houston saw a decrease in non-emergency mental health calls for service. Colorado Springs’ co-responder program resulted in fewer emergency department admissions.
Dirks said the program will hopefully reduce the number of individuals put in emergency protective custody (EPC), which is used when individuals are a danger to themselves or the public.
“I know there’s been at least one call that officers would have likely EPC’d the individual, but with crew contact, they were able to deescalate the individual, problem solve and safety plan to keep the individual from being EPC’d,” Dirks said.
LPD Public Information Officer Erika Thomas said the program is showing promising results on the department side.
“Every minute that an officer can be back in service to respond to those calls that do require law enforcement presence is both of time and cost savings to the community, and we want to spend taxpayer dollars wisely,” Thomas said. “This is an opportunity for people to get the help they need from those who are qualified to do it, and we’re able to direct our resources to those emergency or law enforcement responses where we need to do that.”
Dirks said officers are saving around seven to eight minutes of time on calls where co-responders are involved. So far, LPD officers have responded positively.
“We’ve had a lot of really positive feedback,” Dirks said. “We’re seeing that there are some officers that have been utilizing co-responders multiple times, just because they’re seeing the effectiveness of it and how it does get them back into service quicker.”
Dirks said community members are also appreciative of someone being there to help.
“They’re very receptive,” Dirks said. “A lot of them are appreciative of having that person who’s responding that’s not in uniform that can really help them identify support and safety plans.”
The University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s Psychology Department will study the overall effectiveness of the program, and the Clyde Malone Community Center will collect community feedback.
Thomas said the co-responder program is another step toward a happy, healthy Capital City.
“This is one step in that direction that impacts both public safety, mental and physical health of our community and really gives people connections to many great community resources that maybe they didn’t know existed before they had a chance to make contact with one of our co-responders or one of our officers,” Thomas said.
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