GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — In Grand Rapids, police say about a third of their daily calls involve someone with a mental health issue. And because of that, there's a new effort to address the problem.
Sgt. John Wittkowski is a Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) trained officer with the Grand Rapids Police Department.
"Probably the calls that we respond to on any given night, 30 to 35% of those calls has some mental health or substance use crisis," Wittkowski said.
CIT officers call mobile crisis response social workers to their scenes, but since the social workers currently work throughout Kent County, their response hasn't been quick enough.
"The time from when the call comes in and when the officer gets there and the time the social worker shows up could be anywhere from 20 minutes to much longer than that."
That's precious time the team could be using to help someone in crisis.
In response, the city is looking to contract four to six social workers who will be solely dedicated to calls of crisis in the city of Grand Rapids.
They'll be contracted through Network 180, a mental health service in the city.
"Being able to actually contract with partners who are providing the services like Network 180, it's going to be hugely beneficial because I can assess, but I can't get them into treatment because I don't work for 180," said Julie Markowski, a social worker with the Grand Rapids Police Dept. "So being able to get to the root of it and combine forces, it's going to be really great."
The officers and social workers would co-respond during peak times of crisis which is from 11 AM to 11 PM. The hope is they'll work 7 days a week.
"We want to diminish those 911 calls. We want to get that person where they need to be. We want to increase those outcomes and utilize those resources more optimally," Wittkowski said.
The co-response team is expected to start by early Spring.
►Make it easy to keep up to date with more stories like this. Download the 13 ON YOUR SIDE app now.
Have a news tip? Email news@13onyourside.com, visit our Facebook page or Twitter. Subscribe to our YouTube channel.