Kent County dispatchers to work alongside social worker

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) — The Kent County Sheriff’s Office will have a social worker assisting with mental health calls through a new partnership.

The sheriff’s office announced the program Wednesday, calling it “a significant step toward addressing the growing need for mental health services in emergencies.”

A clinician with Network180 will work in the county’s emergency communications center to support people who are experiencing mental health crises.

“This partnership is an important piece in Network180’s efforts to meet people where they are with the help they need, when they need it,” said Network180 Executive Director Bill Ward in a statement. “Thanks to the hard work and creativity from members of both KCSO and Network180, we will be able to extend clinical assistance to deputies in the field to meet the behavioral health needs of residents throughout Kent County.”

According to the sheriff’s office, the program will help connect people in crises with resources. It’s also expected to reduce law enforcement and medical responses, allowing these teams to respond to other situations.

Chief Deputy Lyndsie Cole says the partnership means that a social worker will be available to assist with calls for 40 hours a week.

“There will be better recognition, hopefully, the propensity for a de-escalation of a situation that might otherwise have been handled differently,” Cole said.

Dispatchers will answer the calls and direct them to speak with the social worker when appropriate.

“If it determines very quickly that they don’t need an emergent response and their needs are more related to mental health crisis or substance use crisis, then they’ll transfer them over to our clinician in that setting,” said Kenny Garvin, associate director of community-based crisis service with Network180.

The social worker can also connect people to treatment.

“That social worker is going to be able to ask that individual if they would like two trained social workers to be able to come out to where they are in the county and utilize our mobile crisis team that we have at Network180. If that individual says, ‘No, I’d rather just talk to someone and get some support, talk about resources,’ then that clinician will be able to take that phone call and be able to do kind of a mini-therapy session.”

This program is different from a Grand Rapids Police Department program in which a social worker is assigned to work directly with an officer.

Network180 says that approach has seen success.

“We’ve seen the reductions of individual having to go to emergency departments, we’ve seen the reduction of the utilization of EMS and individuals having to go via ambulance,” Garvin said.

The sheriff’s office says because of the size of the county, a social worker stationed at dispatch will allow them to help more people.

“We have very high hope that we see many positive outcomes come from this,” Cole said.

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