Public Safety Director Samuel DeMaio speaks at the Township Council meeting on June 14.
BLOOMFIELD, NJ — The Bloomfield Police Department and the town’s Health and Human Services Department are looking to form a joint crisis intervention team, a concept that representatives of the departments presented at the Township Council meeting on June 14. Designed to help the township interact with people having mental health crises, the team would pair a police officer with a crisis intervention officer every day. One of the goals of the team would be to avoid repeat calls responding to the same person in crisis.
“We did an analysis over a calendar year and found that, as a police department, we responded to 229 separate incidents of this nature,” Public Safety Director Samuel DeMaio said at the meeting. “What was more disturbing to see was how many of them were repeats. We were finding the same person at the same location many times.”
The program is modeled after similar ones in other parts of the country, particularly in Denver, Colo., and Charlotte, N.C.
“The key part of it is not just responding to the call and dealing with it in a better way, but it’s the follow-up,” DeMaio said. “It’s a unit that works out of the health department, and the key is the case management and continual follow-up. If they’re staying in touch with the people that they’re dealing with and getting help in a timely fashion, it’ll in turn reduce the calls that the police need to respond to.”
In an email to The Independent Press on June 21, DeMaio said that only Bloomfield Police Department officers who are fully trained in mental health issues will work on the crisis intervention team. The vehicle used to respond to calls will show that it carries a crisis intervention team.
According to Human Services supervisor Paula Peikes, many people who are in crisis and need help get it when they are picked up by the police and taken to a hospital but are often released quickly thereafter. Eventually, the cycle starts over again.
“You see the revolving door: People are taken to an emergency room and are helped, but then they’re released,” she said in a phone interview with The Independent Press on June 18. “But the problem doesn’t get solved. We want to free up the police and find the best way to help with trained partners to get them and the families the help they need.”
The team would also help with follow-up services, managing ongoing mental health issues and supporting families of individuals with mental health issues, as often families need support as well but do not know how to get it.
“By doing continual follow-up and case management we will be ahead of the issues and needs of our local emotionally disturbed persons, which will reduce calls to 9-1-1,” DeMaio said in the email. “The team will be the first point of contact for the families. The crisis intervention team will do daily follow-up and case management.”
The team can also help people who are homeless find placement in housing and will follow up with them as well. According to Peikes, the team will also help medical personnel at the emergency room provide resources for future help.
“We can put services in place, and free up the police and medical doctors at the ER,” she said. “Homelessness is not a crime. It’s not a crime to be mentally ill.”
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