LOUISVILLE, Ky. — One of the main tools in Louisville to help people with serious mental health illnesses and behavioral health episodes has expanded in the last six months and continues to seek further expansion.
Nicole Wiseman leads the Crisis Call Diversion Program (CCDP) for Seven Counties Services. The CCDP, also called the "deflection program", is a partnership between the mental health service provider and 911 dispatchers.
When calls come in to the city's main 911 dispatch center people can ask to be transferred to the deflection team, or the dispatcher can make the determination that it is more of a mental health issue than a public safety issue.
"Calls where someone hasn't taken any active steps to harm themselves, or isn't actively threatening with a weapon, or there isn't domestic or interpersonal violence taking place on scene…that's something that could come over to our crisis triage workers," Wiseman said.
Two crisis triage workers (CTWs) are stationed with other dispatchers at the 911 Call Center within MetroSafe. These CTWs have experience calming people who may be houseless, have a substance abuse issue, or otherwise feel unsafe.
"What this program has done has gotten them in touch with our CTWs, who can really get into the core of the problem that this person has," James Polk , who works with the MetroSafe side of the program, said.
The program started in LMPD's Fourth Division in March 2022, but by May, it had expanded to other police divisions. By March 2023, all eight police divisions had been added. In July of this year, the program again expanded, changing its hours to provide services earlier in the day, seven days a week.
"Being able to have those initial calls, triaged by initially the call takers, and then the crisis triage workers," Wiseman explained. "That's helped de-escalate folks considerably, because we are able to spend a little bit more time learning about what the situation entails."
Between its inception and July 2023, the program averaged 93 calls per month and 33 dispatches of the mobile crisis response team. In the last six months, the program has averaged 170 calls per month and 67 dispatches of the mobile team.
"Some runs don't initially meet the screening, but our CTWs will self-initiate and just kind of delve into that case and see if it's something that we can pull over to our side," Polk said.
The mobile response team is an unmarked van with two employees from Seven Counties. They help the person calm down without the threat of being arrested and can connect them with a community resource.
Over the last nine months, 421 people (71% of mobile all dispatches) voluntarily agreed to be transported to a homeless shelter, hospital, other community service, their house or a family member's house.
"One of the biggest things with our program is that it's entirely voluntary. And that's voluntary, both for the folks that we are responding to as well as for our team. So, if they see something and they feel like it's unsafe, then they're able to pull out," Wiseman said about how no one is forced to take them up on services.
The Department of Justice's scathing report into how Louisville Metro Police habitually deprived people of their rights drew attention to one man that could have benefitted from an alternative response model like this.
Keith Smith, 66, was a homeless man who exhibited mental and behavioral health symptoms in court. He had 21 misdemeanor arrests in 21 months, before dying in custody in January 2022. His cause of death was stomach ulcers and internal bleeding.
FOCUS obtained body camera video of three of Keith's arrests before his death. Officers repeatedly said that they knew Keith, noting that he often seemed high, drunk or "was swaying in the street".
Polk and Wiseman both declined to specifically comment on Keith's case, saying they didn't know enough about him. However, in generalities, they said the program could help people like him.
"[LMPD] puts them in jail, they get released, and they're back out there tomorrow, because they've not met the heinous crimes where they're going to be locked away," Polk explained. "So, what we do is we break that cycle by showing them, there's a whole avenue of things that we can provide you, all you have to do is is let us."
Wiseman said they spent 16 months, mostly in 2021, doing research for the program. One program they took inspiration from was the C.A.H.O.O.T.S. program in Eugene, Oregon, which stands for "Crisis Assistance Helping Out On The Streets."
CAHOOTS is considered the first alternate response model in the nation, starting in 1989. Adam Walsh, director of outreach for the program, said there are a lot of similarities between Louisville's program and theirs.
"It sounds substantially the same," he said. One thing the City of Eugene has done to help their community is list CAHOOTS as an option with every 911 call.
"When they pick up the phone on the other end, they say 'Eugene Police, Fire, CAHOOTS?'" Walsh said. "That's how they answer the phone. So, in that sense, it's really engrained into the public health and wellness system."
Louisville's crisis diversion program has 32 employees right now and wants to expand to 24-hour service soon. The program received nearly $2.9 million in the most recent city budget.
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