How Baltimore Convinced Officers to Seek Help for Alcoholism and Depression

The Bluemind Foundation is working with mental health professionals to provide training to hairdressers to teach them how to ask open-ended questions, spot nonverbal cues of distress in clients, provide comfort to those experiencing mental health crises and refer them to trained therapists. The goal of the training is to help fill the mental health care gap in an area where counseling is often not accessible or accepted by society. So far, 150 hairdressers have received the training and been dubbed “mental health ambassadors.”

Alcoholism affects homeless people around the world, a condition that makes them physically and mentally dependent on alcohol to maintain stable functions. The Oaks shelter in Ottawa serves free daily pours to severe alcoholics in order to stabilize their physical and mental states, and to help them control the amount of alcohol they intake. These measures in Ottawa have proven cost effective, humane, and offer specialized aid to those suffering from alcoholism.

Copline is a hotline for law enforcement, run by law enforcement that gives on-duty cops a place to talk and vent anonymously with people who understand what they’re going through. Copline receives about 400 calls a month and those who call the hotline can also get recommendations for mental health services in their area, like AA meetings and outpatient treatment options.

The Fresno Center provides immigration services and culturally relevant mental health care to members of the Southeast Asian community. The Center provides therapy in native languages and works to destigmitize mental health in an effort to heal decades of generational trauma.

The Frederick Police Department’s Crisis Response Team combines law enforcement with paramedics and mental health professionals to respond to calls. The team can showcase each person’s expertise as needed, providing more individualized care when responding to mental health emergency calls.

The Peer Support Team at Northwest Fire District connects firefighters with a trained peer support specialist to talk confidentially about mental health. The program also connects firefighters in need with additional resources like therapy and counseling. In an effort to change the mindset most first responders have toward mental health, there are currently 50 trained peer support specialists throughout the state and more than 1,000 across the country.

The LEAD program (Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion), which was launched in Seattle in 2011 and is used in such cities as Atlanta, Los Angeles, Portland, Philadelphia, and Baltimore, provides intensive case management and services to people who come in contact with police and qualify to have their low-level cases bypass the criminal justice system. LEAD has been shown to lower recidivism by half and to make it more likely that people with drug and mental health, and other problems can find housing and jobs more easily. But this critical analysis argues that the police should not serve as gatekeepers.

The Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion (LEAD) program in Alamosa, Colorado, gives police officers the option of sending people to substance abuse treatment rather than straight into the criminal justice system. Used in non-violent cases, the diversion program is based on a harm-reduction model that uses a health-care approach rather than a punitive approach to address the underlying issues when a crime is committed. Some police officers object to the program's mission, but proponents say that forcing compliance would be counterproductive.

California’s Los Angeles Police Department has built mental health into its force. The department has 16 psychologists on staff, offering free counseling and debrief sessions after traumatic incidents. As the New York Police Department faces an increase in officer suicides, it looks to the LAPD as it rolls out its new suicide prevention initiatives, like a mental health app, mental health insurance, and access to counseling.

In Vermont, a judge and a family services organization created RapidReferal – a process which offers addicts treatment immediately and has lowered recidivism. Funded by Medicaid, the program has had demonstrable impact, namely, a decrease in recidivism.