According to a press release, on October 26th, “Balch Springs, Mesquite, Seagoville, and Sunnyvale announced one of the first major collaborations by multiple cities in Dallas County, Texas to address mental health.”
The four collaborating cities created The Southeast Alliance Community Care Team to address the public’s “mental health response needs.” This team marks the first idea in building a team of this nature for the east side of the Dallas-Fort Worth area.
WFAA reported a news conference that met on October 26th, where public safety officials and city managers from Balch Springs, Mesquite, Seagoville, and Sunnyvale were all there in support of this initiative.
The Southeast Alliance Community Care Team will provide resources for homeless people who may not have the ability to address their mental health. The team will also work with individuals within the communities who have reported past issues with mental health.
Cliff Keheley, City Manager of Mesquite, stated, “This team is an important step towards providing a resource for residents in our communities and changing the way we deal with residents with mental health issues. Each city has a need for this team. Each city needs every police officer, firefighter, and dispatcher trained to work with people in a crisis. We need to address the growing number of homeless people seeking help in our communities.”
According to WFAA, “An estimated 20% of police response calls involve someone with mental health needs, calls where a social worker, instead of an officer, might be a better approach.”
Melissa Finch Carr is a social worker and the manager of the Behavioral Health Program in Mesquite and will be leading The Southeast Alliance Community Care Team.
In the press release, she shared, “Southeast Alliance Community Care Team has three planned stages. We will reactively respond to 911 emergency mental health crisis calls dispatched by Public Safety. We will actively seek out persons experiencing homelessness to build trust and assess them for social, medical, and psychiatric needs they may have. And, we will develop improved training for all the public safety agencies within the alliance and other public safety staff in Texas that wish to attend. The team will collaborate with public safety staff to create a difference in these communities by making them healthier and safer.”
According to NBC DFW, Melissa Carr mentioned, “The team will help de-escalate a crisis by using trauma-informed care and harm-reduction techniques.” She added, “The team will assist public safety in a supportive role to enhance the ability to identify the factors in the call and to help provide decision-making for the citizen in need.”
The Southeast Alliance Community Care Team received a $900,000 Dallas County grant to help aid the program to hopeful success, mainly since related programs across the United States have succeeded with a budget of that amount.
The press release stated, “The grant will cover the cost of a vehicle and supplies, salaries for two team members, and funding for all four cities to train every police officer, firefighter, and dispatcher in crisis response so that each mental health call is handled in a compassionate manner.”
WFAA stated that the salaries for the team members mentioned in the press release would be for a paramedic and a social worker. The training for officers, firefighters, and dispatchers “is more than what the state requires now.”
Cliff Keheley said, “I would like to express my appreciation to Dallas County for the support of funding through their New Directions in Public Safety grant program. The Southeast Alliance Community Care Team would not be starting today without these financial resources.”
As team leader Melissa Carr said, “The statistics are troubling: One in five adults is living with a mental health issue. The numbers, however, are not exclusive to this southeastern sector,” and continued with, “For the first time in a very long time as a social worker, I feel like we’re going to be able to do something to bring those numbers down.”
City Manager of Balch Springs, Susan Close, talked about the importance of a mental health crisis. “This is something we can no longer put a band-aid on. This is something that’s gushing,” then added, “This is something that has no boundaries. NO age, race, color, it impacts everyone.”
According to WFAA, the Southeast Alliance Community Care Team consists of only one official team. With that said, the plan is to create five more teams in the future.
Brent Hurley, Deputy Chief of Police for Balch Springs, said, “The officers are very excited.” He added, “It’s great to have this response team who’s going to be there to help guide us through these situations so we can get people the help they need and not have them in the criminal justice system,” according to NBC DFW.
Metro Dallas Homeless Alliance made a summary from a count they did on February 18th, 2021. For Dallas County, 4,570 people are considered homeless, whether they have no shelter at all or temporary shelter accommodations, including emergency, transitional housing, or a safe haven.
Within that amount, 3,949 of those individuals are over 24 years old; 249 are between ages 18 and 24; 372 of the 4,570 people are under 18 years old.