Like any other pair of co-workers, Theresa Brookins and Kane Ellis make small talk at work. They chat about their weekend plans, hobbies and families.
Outside the work environment, however, the two might never be mistaken for co-workers. Even inside the department, Ellis’ lack of a uniform is conspicuous. But the pair are a part of an ambitious new approach to policing.
In 2023, the La Plata County Sheriff’s Office implemented a new co-responder program in partnership with Axis Health System. The CORE team pairs behavioral health clinicians with deputies to respond to calls with a behavioral health aspect. The program mirrors Durango Police Department’s co-responder program, which was implemented in 2021.
Brookins, a La Plata County Sheriff’s deputy, hired as a part of the co-responder program, said she has learned patience in the past year.
“I had a totally different type of position before this one and it was always just like, ‘I need to go and get this done.’ And so I had to learn how to just be patient and take our time,” she said.
Ellis, the licensed professional counselor candidate partnered with Brookins, embraced the nature of law enforcement work.
“(Meeting clients in the field) feels a lot more productive to me than sitting there and waiting for clients to come in,” Ellis said.
Co-responder programs are largely aimed at de-escalating situations where law enforcement encounters behavioral health issues.
“Essentially, (de-escalation) means that the people responding to the call have the capacity to hold emotional space and to provide an environment to help a person emotionally calm (down) in a charged situation,” said Molly Rodriguez, a licensed professional counselor and the behavioral health director of Crisis Services and Community Response Programs at Axis Health. “So it’s really more focused on an expertise in communication skills.”
The 911 dispatch team sends in a co-responder unit when they identify a call as having a behavioral health component.
“If the team’s not on duty, the other deputies are making referrals and the team can follow up when they’re on duty the next day,” said Hayley Leonard-Saunders, spokeswoman at Axis Health. Callers can also request a co-responder team for a specific situation. The LP-CORE teams help dispatchers identify calls in which they can help.
“One of the successes that is seen in the program pretty early on is that people call and ask for the team specifically, and so they may be dispatched directly from a request from a caller,” Rodriguez said.
Sometimes, clients prefer to work mostly with Ellis on the clinical side of an issue, and others find it easier to connect with Brookins, the team said. On certain calls, the team is accompanied by an EMT, who can speak to a client about physical health concerns. The team likes to provide callers in crisis with options to make them comfortable.
Since being formed, LP-CORE teams have responded to more than 1,000 calls in the area. The sheriff’s jurisdiction is largely rural; a patrol shift includes five to six deputies covering La Plata County’s roughly 1,700 square miles. The large geographical area – nearly the size of Delaware – and rough topography increases their response times but also increases the need for co-responder units, said La Plata County Sheriff Sean Smith.
“Not everybody lives in (Ignacio, Bayfield and Durango) municipalities, and Durango in particular is extremely expensive and a lot of folks that can have crisis in their life might be out in the county,” he said.
Unlike patrol deputies, LP-CORE teams are not assigned to a specific area, and they can find themselves an hour or more drive from a call.
There are two LP-CORE teams, one that works the front of the week, and the other works the end. Ellis’ Axis Health counterpart on the other team is a licensed clinical social worker. Axis Health requires its clinicians to obtain a master’s degree with license eligibility in order to work with the LP-CORE program.
Brookins said it took some time for the patrol unit to adjust to the LP-CORE team, but now the program and clinicians are well-accepted and even depended on.
“I think (patrol) has been pretty supportive, and I think we’ve got good relationships with them,” Ellis added.
Smith says his team of patrol deputies are grateful for the LP-CORE teams’ help and expertise.
“These are tough calls,” he said. “We have these specialty teams that are taking these very tough, time-intensive calls off their plate.”
The partnership is funded by a Multidisciplinary Crime Prevention and Crisis Intervention Grant awarded through the Office of Adult and Juvenile Justice Assistance.
The grant provided $800,000 to get the LP-CORE program off the ground. Much of that money covered the overhead costs of the program, including vehicles and equipment, and the figure does not represent the continuing cost of the program. The grant has also supported the program’s staff members and has allowed them to provide vital care free of charge.
But grant money is not a sustainable way to fund co-responder programs. Currently, neither state nor local budgets have funding streams built in for the teams.
Measuring the success of co-responder programs is difficult. Often, success is defined by what does not happen when a CORE team responds to a call.
A 2020 study conducted by the Colorado Office of Behavioral Health and Colorado Health Institute found co-responder teams do indeed divert people from jail, emergency rooms and involuntary mental health holds.
According to Axis Health, just 1% of calls handled by a co-responder team resulted in arrests. The study also found that co-responder units allowed law enforcement to connect with individuals who could benefit from long-term behavioral health care.
Smith sees the program as a win-win for everyone.
“I think co-responder is, across the board, a great new tool that law enforcement has been able to tap into, whether it’s small police departments that have nothing to do with elections or a sheriff’s office our size or a large sheriff’s office. I think it’s all about just trying to address community needs,” he said.
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