At the end of June, Meridian Behavioral Healthcare and the Alachua County Sheriff’s Office announced a new mental health co-responder team: Meridian clinical specialist Briana Kelley and Deputy Daniel Maynard.
“We’re not just there to be a quick fix Band-Aid,” Maynard said. “We’re there to see if we can provide long-term services, whether they’re needed for the family or the homeless person.”
The long-term services can include elder care, help with drug addiction and mental health issues.
The first mental health co-responder team in Gainesville was formed with the city’s police department in 2018.
The co-team is comprised of one law enforcement officer, who ensures the scene is safe, and a mental health clinician, who can intervene immediately with whomever needs attention.
“If someone is waving their arms on University and 13th and he has a gun in his hand, I’m not going to take a counselor to go talk to him right away,” Maynard said.
Kelley agrees; she feels law enforcement is always needed at scenes with imminent danger present.
“I have a ballistics vest, but I’m not equipped to handle the rest of the stuff,” Kelley said. “Once the scene is secure, and the crisis has been calmed a little, then we can have a conversation and work on building rapport. You never want to bring more victims to a scene.”
The county’s crisis center has a system for calls that do not require any law enforcement involvement, Maynard said. If there is ever a question about the safety of the people responding, it is more likely that the co-responder team would be contacted.
When it comes to determining what someone may need, it all comes down to starting a conversation.
“It’s kind of situational, but they might see the sheriff’s uniform or my Meridian uniform, and then they’ll start a conversation,” Kelley said.
Calls are processed and entered, according to policy and procedure, before being forwarded to the appropriate dispatcher.
“Some calls require more than one unit, like a suicidal person with a fire too,” Kelley said. “Having two units tied up means that they can’t respond to any additional calls. That’s where we come in.”
The team self-assigns which call to take, Kelley said. When calls come in, they are color-coded by priority.
“The red calls are Priority 1 calls, so if there’s any suicide attempts or immediate threat to themselves, then we’ll prioritize that,” Kelley said. “Then Priority 2 would be something like a Baker Act, and Priority 3 calls would be like domestic disturbances.”
Farther down the priority list are things like well-being checks or medical emergencies where the team would assist the family, Kelley said.
“We’ve helped with a lot of different calls, and citizens may not even know that they’ve gotten a quicker response because we’ve been able to alleviate some of the load,” Kelley said.
Meridian is a private, nonprofit organization that provides a variety of community mental health services, including treatment and education.
Joy Riddle, senior vice president of Meridian, said forming these co-responder teams has been a part of their long-term plan for a while.
Sheriff’s office spokesman Sgt. Frank Kinsey said law enforcement officers agree with the long-term value of these teams.
“Having a clinician there helps in erasing or combating the stigma or criminalization of mental health,” Kinsey said.
