Mental Health Cooperative, Nashville Fire Department to team up on crisis response calls

Kirsten Fiscus, Nashville Tennessean
·2 min read

The Mental Health Cooperative is partnering more mental health clinicians with first responders again, but this time there's no police involved.

The Cooperative will launch REACH, or Responders Engaged and Committed to Help, with the Nashville Fire Department later this month. It'll be the city's first "non-law enforcement mental health crisis response program," according to a news release from the Mental Health Cooperative.

“Every behavioral health incident is different, and each requires a different response,” Mental Health Cooperative CEO Pam Womack said. “I would like to thank our local government leaders and the Nashville Fire Department for making mental health a priority and ensuring our community has access to adequate and appropriate care.”

More:Nashville program teaming police with mental health workers is now permanent

The Cooperative currently partners with the Metro Nashville Police Department to run Partners in Care, a program that puts clinicians in the car with officers as they respond to calls where a person may be having a mental health crisis.

In September, the Metro City Council voted to make the program permanent. In its first year, they responded to 1,344 calls with 4% of the them resulting in arrest.

This new program, launching Feb. 13, works under the same premise as Partners in Care, except they respond with a paramedic from the Nashville Fire Department to behavioral health incidents that do not require a police officer. The program is meant to cut down on response times and decrease the number of people who are transported to emergency rooms after a call to 911.

“This program will allow our responses to be more efficient,” Fire Department Chief William Swann said. “With REACH, the Nashville Fire Department can approach a situation with the right resources the first time, helping individuals in crisis more quickly and reducing the demand on emergency resources.”

REACH clinicians will be partnered with paramedics Tuesday through Friday from 10 a.m. until 8 p.m.

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Nashville Fire Department partners with Mental Health Cooperative