INDIANAPOLIS — The city of Indianapolis shared an update Tuesday on its new $2 million Clinician-Led Community Response pilot program, which has been in place for three weeks.
Since July 1, the teams have been responding to people in crisis in Indianapolis, connecting Hoosiers to mental health help, without any police involvement.
"These challenges can manifest in various forms including, but not limited to, substance abuse, domestic violence, suicide and severe mental illness," said Andrea Brown, director of operations for Stepping Stone Therapy Center.
"This non-law enforcement response is a first of its kind in Indianapolis," Indianapolis Mayor Joe Hogsett said. "Call 911 to assess a clinical response and hopefully a road to treatment."
"We have the therapists and the peer specialists go. There's no one who can arrest anyone, no one with a gun. They're there to help and ask questions and get the person to the next step," said Martine Bernard-Tucker, director of the Indianapolis Office of Public Health and Safety.
The first step is a 911 call.
A dispatcher, specially trained to discern types of calls and their needs, deploys the team only for a nonviolent mental health emergency.
Other 911 calls would go to IMPD or the city's Mobile Crisis Assistance Team (MCAT), which has mental health counselors onboard, but also includes an officer.
Haleigh Rigger is one of the CLCR clinicians, working to deescalate, intervene and make referrals in real time.
She said they're already making a difference.
"We've been able to connect several folks with services around the community, including the assessment and intervention center here," Rigger said. "We've also had a couple calls around someone from out of town who had dementia, who got lost from her family. We were able to help connect her back with her family safely."
The team is connecting with the community outside of emergencies, too.
"Even just doing street outreach downtown on the Circle and surrounding areas, handing out bottles of water so that folks can recognize our T-shirts and our logo, know who we are when they see us and know who will be responding when they do ask for mental health support through 911," Rigger said.
The program, which currently only serves IMPD's Downtown District, has responded to 20 calls so far, with a city spokesperson noting "an increased pace over the past two weeks."
The team currently has 15 staffers and operates from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. daily. Now they want to expand to 36 people, looking to hire more licensed counselors so they can respond 24/7 to help Hoosiers in crisis.