Cambridge Police Department Launches a Co-Response Team

Cambridge Police Department Launches a Co-Response Team

Cambridge Police Department (CPD) launched a co-response program that places a clinician in a cruiser with a police officer to respond to mental health calls. Beginning in August 2024, Officer Qaiss Farazi, aka “Q”, and Co-Response Clinician Bonnie Magee, an employee from North Suffolk Community Services, began responding to mental health calls across the city. The two main goals of co-response are to reduce arrests related to mental health calls and to reduce unnecessary trips to the ER for mental health calls that can potentially be resolved on scene.

The co-response team works out of the CPD Family & Social Justice Section (FSJS). When co-response arrives on scene, the officer first determines if the scene is safe before the clinician begins engaging people. The goal is to have the co-response team dispatched to the calls that will benefit the most from on scene crisis de-escalation. This approach allows patrol officers to clear from time-intensive mental health calls after the co-response arrives.

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This program furthers the work of the Clinical Support Unit (CSU), established in 2018 under the direction of CPD psychologist Dr. Jamie Barrett. CSU uses a case management and follow-up model, in which social workers and a case manager follow up on mental health calls with the goal of stabilizing and supporting residents in the community. Co-response will enhance this case management model by adding an on-scene clinician response.

Cambridge will be one of the first cities to have an integrated behavioral health response model with a co-responder integrated into a public safety system that also has clinicians in the 911 call center and in the CPD Clinical Support Unit. This model allows the co-responder to focus on the crisis stabilization on scene while the social workers in 911 and CPD work to help get services and support resources in place.