A new law enforcement diversion program, the Alternative Response Team (ART), responded to 830 emergency calls in its first six months of operation.
The Bellingham program, which began operating in July 2023 through Whatcom County Health and Community Services, sends professionals, instead of police, to help people in a behavioral health crisis when a local resident calls 911.
Staffed by behavioral health professionals and an ART community connector embedded in the WhatComm dispatch center, the program served 769 individuals between July and December 2023. It currently operates from 8:30am to 5:30pm Monday through Friday.
Programs like ART are part of the department’s “public health approach to public safety,” said Mallora Christensen, manager of Response Systems, in a recent presentation to the Whatcom County Council.
“[It’s] one that focuses the response and interaction on emergence, doing our best to provide interventions that target the root causes behind an individual’s situation,” she said.
ART launched in January 2023 and spent months getting ready to operate, Christensen said. The program is now in the analysis phase.
“Should we change our hours? Should we expand to seven days a week? Could the community connector position play a different role in involving other teams in 911 calls? I would say we’re still in that phase, let’s do the work long enough to figure it out,” Christensen told CDN.
How ART works
When someone calls 911 during ART hours, dispatchers and the ART community connector decide what the response should look like, Christensen said. Dispatchers conduct safety checks with callers to determine if it would be safe to send a behavioral health team instead of police.
Bellingham Police Department Public Information Officer Megan Peters said the police department received 37,000 calls from July to December 2023, and approximately 2 percent of those calls were forwarded to ART.
Deputy Director Alisne Everbeck, who runs the WhatComm 911 dispatch center, told the council meeting that calls fall into three buckets: a person calling for help for themselves while experiencing a behavioral health crisis; a person calls worried that a loved one may need help; or the community calls for a “disturbance.”
“It can be trespassing, especially if the person doesn’t have the authority to enter it or they don’t want him to have an interaction with law enforcement, he just wants the problem to stop,” she said. “It could also just be someone acting strangely in a public place and causing alarm to the callers.”
ART team members spend an average of 45 minutes to an hour with the person at the site. During that time, members use de-escalation skills, build rapport with the client and guide them to the “next level of care” outside of ART, Supervisor John Dukes said in an interview.
Christensen said clients’ most pressing needs include shelter, behavioral health services and detox treatment, but the restrictions make it challenging for ART members to connect people with services.
As a result, team members often do “safety planning” with people due to resource constraints.
“If they need housing, we don’t have immediate housing that we can give them, but it’s really saying, how can you be safe tonight? What’s your plan, let’s discuss it,” she said.
Dukes said the behavioral health aide on the ART team can transport people, which allows the team and the client to look at resources throughout the region, such as detox centers in Skagit County and Oak Harbor, he said. Other times it takes people to a hospital for care or home with family.
Christensen emphasized in his presentation that law enforcement does not need additional support 99 percent of the time.
Next year
So far, the program has been funded by a $2.2 million appropriation from the state Legislature, supported by Representative Alicia Rule, and funding from the Washington Association of Cities through the City of Bellingham.
County Council member Todd Donovan asked at a March 19 meeting about the hesitation people may have to call 911. Christensen said it’s not a perfect system, but the program is another resource along with other options if someone is in crisis. This includes the Volunteers of America Crisis Line (800-584-3578) and the Homeless Outreach Team (360-312-3717).
Dukes and Christensen also promote 988: the 24-hour suicide and crisis hotline.
“The reality is, if someone feels they need to call 911, we now have the ability Monday through Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., for a community connector to be able to take that call and then if it’s safe, to send an Alternate Response Team,” Christensen said.
Charlotte Alden is CDN’s general assignment/enterprise reporter; contact her at [email protected]; 360-922-3090 ext. 123.