Tulsa looks to be the first city in Oklahoma to dispatch mental health workers to calls instead of police.
Community Outreach Psychiatric Emergency Services (COPES) is working to develop a call system that would allow mental health specialists to be sent to calls without a police request.
COPES Vice President Amanda Bradley said this alternative response is expected to go into effect in February.
“We will be able to ensure that COPES mental health response team is dispatched when appropriate instead of law enforcement officers,” Bradley said.
Other local governments in the United States such as Denver and Harris County, Texas have successfully implemented this call model.
“It will be truly transformative to the city of Tulsa in the way that individuals suffering from a mental health concern, behavioral health issues, substance abuse issues or homelessness are provided services,” Bradley said.
The move follows COPES workers screening dispatch calls for alternative response starting this month. Tulsa police Capt. Shellie Seibert said the change helps dispatch determine what kind of response is best suited for a call.
Tulsa currently has three options for alternative response to traditional first response:
- Alternative Response Team – COPES and Tulsa fire paramedic
- Integrated Response Team – COPES worker responding to police call at an officer’s request
- Community Response Team – COPES worker rides with Tulsa police officer and fire paramedic
The new model adds a fourth alternative response, comprised only of a mental health professional with COPES sent directly by dispatch.
“What we’ll see is a reduction in mental health calls that police have to respond to, and that we’re going to give the right resources at the right time to the community member that needs us,” Seibert said. “So it’s going to free up police officers from going on mental health calls, and they can respond to crimes in progress.”
The new COPES teams will also have homeless outreach workers suited to connect unhoused people with ongoing care.
Healthy Minds Policy Initiative Director Zack Stoycoff said it’s important to still have law enforcement response as an option for dispatch. But he also said he doesn’t want to put officers in situations “where they have to be a mental health clinician.”
Stoycoff said dispatchers have not yet perfected how to make this determination.
“Once we can assess at the call taker level whether somebody’s needing mental health or not and determine when to send police out at that level, you’re going to see immediate improvement. But it’s a continuous improvement process,” Stoycoff said.
Tulsa’s shift to alternative response comes as Oklahoma City is under scrutiny from the federal government for incarcerating too many people in need of mental health care. The Department of Justice determined the police department and the city “discriminate against people with behavioral health disabilities” by unnecessarily arresting them.
