DAYTON — The city of Dayton received over a million dollars to create a new crisis response team that would handle calls related to mental health.
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The Ohio Criminal Justice Services, a division of the Ohio Department of Public Safety, granted the city of Dayton $1.4 million to form a new crisis response program that would include a six-specialist team. The team would be tasked with responding to calls related to mental health, a spokesperson for Dayton’s Human Services said.
Historically, police officers handled these types of 911 calls.
However, with the city of Dayton reporting a 73 percent increase in mental health related calls just from March 2021 to September 2022, officials believed that trained professionals would be better suited to respond to these incidents, the spokesperson continued.
The new response unit would also allow for officers to better prepare for their next call that suited their responsibilities, training, and skill set, the spokesperson informed.
Operation of the Crisis Response Unit is expected to handle their first 911 call later this year.
In June 2022, the city of Dayton launched a “first-of-its-kind” Mediation Response Unit that answered nearly 2,000 calls for service using mediation-based de-escalation techniques. This program was implemented to divert people away from the criminal justice system when possible, the spokespersons said.
The Mental Health Crisis Response Unit would be an addition to this to better serve the community with specifically trained specialists.
The programs are a collaboration between the Dayton Police Department and Montgomery County Regional Dispatch.
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