Ford supports Chicago Department of Health leading on mental health emergencies

(The Center Square) – Illinois state Rep. LaShawn Ford is applauding Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson’s move to solely place control of the city’s mental health emergency response team in the hands of Department of Health officials.

With city officials having recently committed to ramping up mental health services, the plan approved by the City Council’s Committee on Health and Human Relations establishes that police and fire department paramedics will no longer be part of the city’s Crisis Assistance Response and Engagement (CARE) team, which will now largely consist of just behavioral health clinicians and emergency medical technicians.

“I wholeheartedly support the mayor,” Ford told The Center Square. “I believe it's his initiative that he campaigned on and I think the City Council has been working on this type of alternative policing. I think that it can be very effective. I would say we definitely want to have socially competent people that are aware of the people that they're serving and the neighborhoods. That's going to be critical.”

Passage of the legislation comes after Ald. Rossana Rodriguez-Sanchez first introduced her so-called “Treatment Not Trauma” ordinance in 2021. The plan also proposes reopening 14 currently closed city-run mental health centers.

Up until now, such crisis calls have been handled by teaming mental health officials with specially trained police officers and paramedics. Over the last three years, data shows CARE program officials have answered more than 1,500 calls ending in no arrests or use of force.

Ford said he can recall too many times when such interactions have ended badly stemming from some sort of disconnect between all the parties involved.

“You have individuals with autism that sometimes police may come and they may not understand what's going on with the individual and they may be too rough with policing,” he said. “When you look at people with special needs, substance use disorders, we have to be very careful that we have people that have the skills. You can't know everything, just like the police can't be everywhere.”

Ford said he thinks the extra work will prove to be well worth the effort.

“I believe that it will help save some lives,” he said. “We can’t turn the job over to the social workers in every case, but we still need to be sure that law enforcement is trained on how to deal with social workers and the social workers should be trained at how to deal with the police.”

The CARE program is currently active in 24 neighborhoods, including Uptown, Lakeview, the Loop, Chicago Lawn, Englewood, Chatham and in Lincoln Park, Douglas, Brighton Park, Greater and Auburn Gresham.