The Lander County Sheriff’s Office, Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office, and the Winnemucca Police Department (WPD) are among the 11 Nevada law enforcement agencies that will be participating in a Virtual Crisis Care (VCC) program that will give officers access to behavioral health professionals via telehealth around that clock.
According to the national nonprofit Treatment Advocacy Center, one in five of the calls that law enforcement receives involve someone who may need care from a mental health care professional. The VCC program will allow on-the-scene access to immediate care because law enforcement will have tablets to access the resources with them in the field.
“At least every other day we deal with somebody who’s in a mental health crisis,” said Winnemucca Police Department Lieutenant, Jeff Murdock.
The accelerated approach will allow officers to present individuals with video consultation so that the virtual crisis response team can complete an assessment and communicate with law enforcement to establish follow-up care with local mental health services with the appropriate level of urgency and privacy. Trained experts will be able to de-escalate mental health crisis that involve suicidal ideation, self-harm, depression, and similar occurrences that officers regularly encounter when they respond to calls. According to Lt. Murdock, the WPD officers undergo annual training in mental health crisis response, but it is not extensive like that of special task units in other, larger cities.
“We definitely don’t have enough resources here and we are increasingly dealing with people that are in mental health crisis,” said Lt. Murdock.
Rural places like Humboldt and Lander counties tend to have less resources than urban areas for things such as mental health, but with the help of the funding and the Department of Human and Health Services (DHHS), which “promotes the health and well-being of Nevadans through the delivery or facilitation of essential services to ensure families are strengthened, public health is protected, and individuals achieve their highest level of self-sufficiency”, officers will be more equipped to help people and can respond to calls with confidence.
“The cops here are the catch-all,” said Murdock. “In bigger cities they have crisis intervention units where they actually send specially trained units to talk with people that are in that type of crisis. We lack these tools, so this is a great start.”
The funds to support this program—$3.8 million— were allotted from the Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust (HCT) to the Nevada DHHS in mid June, as an initiative to bring adequate mental health resources to more remote communities. The DHHS will be helping to organize the funds and get officers the VCC tools.
“A lot of the time, people aren’t actually committing a crime when they are in a mental health crisis, but they need someone to talk to, so they or someone else will call 911 because they don’t know what to do,” Murdock said. “This will help us get people connected with resources that they don’t have to pay for.”
Lt. Murdock explained some of the potential drawbacks of the program because of the nature of many mental health crisis situations that may involve drugs, alcohol, PTSD, or suicide. He explained that some individuals may not be open to the idea of virtual care, or even care at all.
“Obviously people have to be in some level of cooperation to even interact with us or the virtual crisis response team,” said Lt. Murdock, and added that he can see some individuals not utilizing or responding to the VCC, but for many that call 911 as a cry for help, this could truly help connect them with proper care.
“It definitely can’t hurt,” said Murdock.
Captain of the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Department, Sean Wilkin, said that this will be a good resource for deputies and the department will be showcasing the program when it is officially up and running in the future.
The Lander County Sheriff’s Office was contacted for their take on the new program, but did not respond to inquiries as of presstime.