Emergency Response (Photo: Benjamin Kanter/Mayor’s Photo Office)
The Behavioral Health Emergency Assistance Response Division (B-HEARD) is New York City’s attempt to reform how 911 responds to mental health emergencies and has been working in select areas for over a year. And the trend is heading in the wrong direction.
B-HEARD was launched in June 2021 as an alternative to the NYPD-led response to mental health-related 911 calls. Deadly. Instead, the B-HEARD team consists of paramedics and social workers to deal with these crises. In his 12-month period ending June 30, approximately 11,000 mental health calls were made to 911 in the areas served by the program. Originally in Harlem, he covered five police precincts, but now includes 11 precincts in Manhattan and the Bronx.
However, as the program expands, its effectiveness needs to be addressed. Right Crisis Intervention in New York City Today (CCIT-NYC)of Recent analysis Data quietly released by the city last month shows an increase in response times and hospitalizations, as well as a decline in mental health-related phone calls. To make matters worse, a police officer is responding to his B-HEARD calls, defeating its original purpose of serving as an alternative to police-led responses.
You don’t have to do it this way.
New York could learn from Portland, Oregon.this is portland street response (PSR), which I was lucky enough to visit earlier this year, is pretty much the same as B-HEARD, having launched just a few months earlier.These programs are designed to work in a similar fashion, but PSR’s recent 12 months data It shows greater success in terms of total hospital admissions, number of mental health calls answered, and average response time.
Last March, Portland’s program was expanded citywide.Since its expansion, the program has Record number of calls — From 44 in October 2021 to 824 in October 2022, an increase of 1773%. On the other hand, B-HEARD support is becoming less and less. He made only 22% of the mental health calls 911 forwarded to his B-HEARD pilot program in New York over the course of the year, and the B-HEARD team responded to his 69% of these calls. Down from his 82% at the start.
Both PSR and B-HEARD response teams include paramedics and mental health professionals. However, there is a crucial difference between the two programs. The PSR also includes her two peers who are trained to be responders.
As someone who experienced a mental health crisis and was later trained to help others Howie the Harp Advocacy Center I know that in New York City, peers have empathetic responses that cannot be duplicated by someone who has not gone through the same experience. are trained to connect to different services. It is also part of the follow-up process to ensure individuals continue to receive the help they need so that dangerous situations do not recur. They are very important to the success of the program.
In addition to including peers, Portland is making more data available to the public. PSR is Dashboard This is updated regularly with call volume and location of calls routed to the PSR. The first-year evaluation was a 144-page document outlining program performance and outcomes, as well as general stakeholder feedback.
By comparison, New York only published a two-page data brief containing annual averages rather than quarterly figures. New Yorkers can’t find more detailed data than Portland highlighting the prominent times, days, and locations of calls routed to PSR. New Yorkers deserve to know what’s going on in their communities. And without access to this data, it is impossible to determine whether the program was successful.
PSR will be a 24/7 service within the next year. I wish the same for B-HEARD, which now runs 16 hours a day. However, we are wary of the potential expansion of programs that require critical fixes. Members of the New York City Council indicate they are ready to hold a joint oversight hearing. We call on Eva Wong, director of the city’s community mental health department, to testify. No time to waste.
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Evelyn Graham Nyaasi is a Community Access Advocacy Specialist, member of the CCIT-NYC Steering Committee, and a recognized peer (someone with experience in mental health recovery and services). on Twitter @ccitnyc.
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