At their desks inside the Burien Police Department, Detective Scott Mandella and Daisy Espinoza, members of the police department’s first co-response team, will often start their shift with a briefing to ask: “Who needs follow up from the previous day?” Sometimes, patrol officers from a previous shift will drop by to share information about a person they think needs some follow up.
For Tony Rosenthal and Lindsey Mueller, members of the King County Fire District 2’s (KCFD2) first co-response team, the start of their day looks very similar: “Which service providers or medical care teams do we need to call to follow up on care?” “Is there a new service provider we want to meet that can possibly be a resource?” “Did a firefighter interact with someone on a previous shift that needs follow up?”
These four individuals make up Burien’s co-response network, a model of crisis response that pairs a public safety responder such as law enforcement or firefighter, with behavioral health and social work specialists to intervene and respond to certain types of calls for emergency service.
In Burien, one co-response team operates out of KCFD2 and covers White Center, Burien, and Normandy Park. The King County Sheriff’s Office (KCSO) operates another co-response team, with one more soon to launch, in their Precinct 4 covering both Burien and White Center. It took almost a year to develop the programs and hire the people to be on the teams. The police team began operating last October and the fire team started a few months later in January.
Rosenthal is a firefighter with 32 years of firefighting and emergency medical technician experience. Mueller is a mental health professional who has worked as behavioral health specialist and social worker for 10 years. Their team is modeled after the Fire Department Community Assistance, Referrals and Education Services (FDCARES) program, which was developed so fire departments could assist community members with issues before an issue becomes an emergency.
“We each get to bring out our area of expertise, knowledge, and experiences,” said Mueller. “We collaborate in a way that provides that interdisciplinary approach.”
“Our number one goal is to get people the right resources,” said Rosenthal. “The team also helps us keep our emergency vehicles in service for more urgent emergency calls.”
The police team pairs Detective Scott Mandella— who as a former member of the City of Burien’s Navigation Team and the Burien Police Department’s Crime Reduction Unit has specialized experience and skills working with people experiencing homelessness and other crises—with Daisy Espinoza, who has worked in behavioral health and social work for eight years.
Mueller and Espinoza are employed by Sound Health, a behavioral health provider. The partnership between Sound Health and the City of Burien helps ensure the quality of care and supports ongoing professional development.
Co-response teams emerging in other cities as part of larger trend
Co-response teams have emerged in other cities for several reasons. Both police and fire emergency responders recognized that a different type of response was needed to address the complex needs of individuals they were being called to serve. Burien and King County were also seeing the same trends and sought ways to bring the right resources to the community.
At the same time, under their “Reimagining Public Safety Initiative”, King County had allocated $750,000 to develop “new approaches to keep people safe in urban unincorporated King County. Community and other law enforcement had both expressed support for creating a co-response model, which led to the creation of the first co-response team in King County.
Co-response teams supplement existing emergency behavioral health resources in King County.
Bringing alternative public safety models to Burien
In 2020, conversations began in Burien about possible alternatives to our current approach to public safety and emergency response. Like communities across the region, fire and police first responders were being called to scenes where individuals were experiencing a mental health crisis or just had needs that police and fire needed different resources to handle.
Colleen Brandt-Schluter, the City’s Human Services Manager, along with Burien Police Chief Ted Boe and King County Fire District 2 Chief Mike Marrs, worked together to begin research into other models. The Burien City Council also lent their support to the effort, asking staff to look into alternative models during conversations about public safety.
“There has been a big push to integrate mental health professionals into law enforcement over the last few years,” said Boe. “The gap we had here is having funding and readily available mental health professionals available to put into the field.”
The team researched programs in Dallas, Eugene, and other cities to see what elements of those programs might work for Burien. “Over the last three years it’s been really cool to be part of these partnerships,” said David Fagerholm, Senior Clinic Manager at Sound Health. “Programs like this offer not only a way to help people in the moment, but also help expand resources that didn’t exist before by helping inform elected officials of what people need.”
Funding for the fire department co-response team comes from an allocation of federal pandemic relief funding through Burien’s Enhanced Public Safety initiative and money allocated through King County Medic One’s levy which includes mobile integrated health. King County is providing all the funding for the police co-response teams.
Early successes point to long-term community benefit
Since October, the co-response teams have responded to more than 500 calls and made more than 400 referrals to service providers such as health care providers, shelter, or food assistance.
“It’s about getting to know people to figure out what is contributing to the crisis,” said Mueller.
“For so long, client care has been siloed,” said Mandella. “When communicating with the client’s care team, they think I’m a detective trying to open an investigation into their client. My response is that I’m trying to help. But that’s one of my motivations for doing this work. We may be coming at this from different angles, but we have the same intention—the best care for the person in crisis.”
For Espinoza, one early measure of success is that some of the people she’s met now feel comfortable stopping by the police department and asking for help. Or sometimes, they stop by to just to give her an update that they are in a better situation.
They also measure success through the impact on the day-to-day work of the patrol officers and fire personnel.
“We love that patrol is better understanding our use,” said Mandella.
But change in a person’s situation can happen slowly.
“Whether it’s a behavioral health crisis or related to a medical condition, change happens in very slow increments,” said Rosenthal. “Sometimes it’s one step forward and six steps back. But now we can try to follow someone through that and continue to reach out.”
What is a typical day for a co-response team?
When asked what their typical day looks like, they all laugh.
“There is no typical day,” said Rosenthal. “One day could look like Lindsey on the phone trying to track down a person’s case manager. Or we could be inside the home of an older resident who had been living independently but now needs resources and support.”
There is also no typical client for the co-response teams. They serve a diverse group of people facing a variety of situations—from people experiencing homelessness, youth struggling with mental health or addiction, a single father looking for housing, or an older person struggling with complex health issues. But it’s not just the individual they are helping.
Recently, a deputy patrol officer shared a story about a 12-year-old child that was experiencing a crisis. Police had been called and after evaluating the scene, they found no emergency or criminal act that required further police investigation. However, after conversation with the young person, the deputies recognized that this child needed some form of intervention.
The co-response team was called, and Espinoza was able to quickly begin connecting with the young person. The deputy praised her quick and empathetic response. The hope is that by intervening now in this person’s life, the young person will avoid more destructive behaviors that could land them in jail.
“We are also helping the family of that client navigate the system,” said Espinoza.
Navigating our community’s social safety net
There are individuals who call 911 often for non-emergency purposes or for issues that police and fire just don’t have the time or expertise to handle.
For example, KCFD2 responded to a house where an older person lived who had fallen, not for the first time. The team looked at the person’s medication list to make sure that wasn’t contributing to the falls. They checked on whether the person needed a shower grip handle installed to prevent future falls. They also connected that person to a fall-prevention program. The co-response team was able to help that person get the shower grip handle installed and then also work with them to see if there were other unmet health or social needs that other community service providers could offer.
For Mueller, the key is linking the right service at the right time.
“Crisis happens in the moment and it’s immediate. Oftentimes there are providers that can provide a resource, but it’s difficult to access that service in a crisis. That’s when we have to shift focus and figure out how do we support someone in that crisis until that resource is available.”
Our community’s social safety net is comprised of many social services, health care, and addiction treatment providers that will work together but ultimately operate independently. It can be difficult for an individual with complex needs to navigate and find the right resources. For that reason, a component of the work the co-response teams do is build relationships and communicate with those providers.
“A lot of legwork is being done to connect people into systems and services to make sure people aren’t falling through the cracks,” said Brandt-Schluter.
“We’ve spent a lot of time building relationships and connections with local services,” said Mueller. Both fire and police co-response teams pointed to a strengthened relationship with St. Anne Hospital’s social worker team.
“We see what’s happening to people when they call 911 and are in crisis,” said Mandella. “We can provide context for that individual’s care provider that they wouldn’t necessarily receive by caring for their client in a clinical setting.”
A new law enforcement co-response team has been hired and trained and will be beginning to work this September. Other areas of King County are looking at how the model is working here and seeking to create their own co-response teams.
The work is also challenging pre-conceived notions of what collaboration between law enforcement and social work can look like.
“I’ve fielded a lot of excited questions from social workers that I interact with that are interested in perhaps pursuing working on a co-response team,” said Espinoza.
“You don’t know when you are going to be in a crisis,” said Anyah Zupancic, Human Services Coordinator for the City of Burien. “You may not even know how to access the resources that are available. Co-response is so important because it provides alternative response and helps to not perpetuate trauma.”
Co-response teams:
- Improve de-escalation during a crisis by providing a more appropriate response
- Increase individuals access to community resources as such as health care, food banks, elder services, and more
- Reduce pressure on the criminal legal system by increasing the efficiency of officers’ time spent managing calls for service
- Reduce pressure on the health care system by helping a close a critical gap in care coordination
- Increase individuals’ access to community services by helping them connect to resources and navigate systems
