ST. LOUIS COUNTY, Mo. – Law enforcement and mental health experts will be able to work more closely together with the help of a major grant set to be announced Tuesday in Bridgeton.
Authorities will reveal details about the new collaboration at the SSM Health DePaul Hospital Tuesday afternoon. The program is all about supporting efforts around mental health and is being billed as the first of its kind for our region.
The players include St. Louis County Police, St. Charles County Police and multiple health care providers, including BJC Healthcare, SSM Health, Assisted Recovery Centers of America, and the Compass Health Network.
A state crisis intervention program grant of just over $1.5 million will support the new initiative. The funding will allow for licensed professional counselors with expertise in suicide intervention and prevention, substance abuse, and behavior analysis, including threat assessments, to work with police crisis intervention teams.
Program organizers say adding counselors to these teams is crucial because it will bring resources to those in need more quickly. It could also play a role in reducing the number of repeated calls for service.
Authorities say that each year St. Louis County Police and St. Charles County Police respond to thousands of calls involving people in mental health crisis situations.
The hope is that this new program will help authorities have a more effective response to those calls as well as ensure the safety of officers and the community in general when mental health calls take place.