The task force behind the Oak Park Community Safety Project has spent months exploring alternative responses to mental health-related police calls. Through educational sessions, public engagement sessions and private working sessions, the task force has explored several different models of response, the needs of the Oak Park community, and the challenges of changing systems that are deeply ingrained in civic mindsets.
The process will culminate in giving recommendations to Oak Park village managers, although at this time these recommendations are still in draft form. We’ve given Journal a preview of what lies ahead, but be warned.
“We don’t have the full information yet, so we don’t want to announce anything off the mark,” Potts said. “Before making proposals to village managers, we want to make sure that the proposals we make are well vetted in different areas of the community.”
The task force is studying alternative response models being adopted elsewhere in the country. In some cases, new personnel are incorporated into police departments or other models that do not utilize the police at all. In the embedded model, police departments hire social workers and assist individuals. Potts doesn’t say what kind of model the task force recommends.
“Minimizing police use was a big priority for us,” she said.
The task force examined the experiences of two communities, Denver and Eugene, Oregon. These communities use outreach and embedding models respectively.
“We’re learning a lot about these models,” Simmons told the Library Board on February 28.
Since then, the task force has analyzed the advantages and disadvantages of different types of response models, such as the partnership between Oak Park Police Department and Thrive Counseling Center. Some of the task force members are Thrive personnel.
The task force is likely to present its final recommendations later this month. Peer mobilization, community education, ongoing police crisis intervention training, follow-up and village accountability.
Using a peer includes engaging a certified recovery support specialist, Potts said. These individuals have experience with mental health conditions and have undergone state certification processes to learn de-escalation techniques. Because the mental health field is so white and female, the Task Force goes beyond that to ensure that the response to the mental health crisis employs the right representation.
“It’s not representative of who is seeking treatment,” Potts said.
In addition to considering mental health responses from a racially and gender equitable perspective, the Task Force also employs a neurodiverse lens. Adopting a one-size-fits-all model will not work because not all mental health crises are the same and not everyone experiences them.
“The crisis of someone with dementia is very different from the crisis of someone with suicidal thoughts,” Potts said. “It is important to be able to respond appropriately, and to have diversity in response.”
Equally important is community education about the mental health crisis. 988, a suicide and crisis hotline, can be called in such moments, but not everyone is aware of its existence. and initiate a police response. Additionally, a component of community education could include teaching the public how to identify when a person is experiencing a mental health crisis.
It is still likely that someone will not be able to easily identify whether they need to call 988 or 911. In such cases, it is important to keep police officers trained in crisis intervention.
“Let’s say it was a robbery, but it wasn’t a robbery after all. It’s someone who’s disoriented and roaming around the building trying to get back to the unit,” Potts said. Thinking that, I reported it to the police.I want the police to respond appropriately.”
As Potts pointed out, the task force also recommends post-crisis follow-up because mental health crises don’t always end after responses are dispatched. The Task Force is still deciding what these steps will entail.
The final draft recommendations outline village accountability in the form of aggregate data collection and should be made available to the public on a regular basis. This helps determine the effectiveness of alternative response models.
“We want to see the data. What kind of calls are we getting, who is answering them, how are they resolved?” Potts said.
The development of alternative response models is divided into two phases, the first being handled by this task force, also known as the Mental Health Task Force. As the name of the task force suggests, the focus of Phase 1 is specifically related to developing alternative responses to mental health calls. Phase 2 has not yet begun, but will work on how to respond to other calls to police that do not require a violent response but are not mental health related, such as calls reporting raccoons with rabies.
Potts, Executive Director of Oak Park Township’s Community Mental Health Commission, co-chairs the Mental Health Task Force with Alison Davenport, CEO of River Edge Hospital in Forest Park. In addition to them, the task force is made up of local school superintendents, medical professionals, and representatives of Oak Park tax and community service organizations. Oak Park fire and police chiefs and deputy chiefs also attend task force meetings that are not subject to the Public Assembly Act. However, some sessions are public and can be viewed online.
