Healthy and Safe Communities

Summary of Objective Implementation Status

The Mobile Support Team (MST) model supported by the County is comprised of mental health clinicians who are supposed to accompany law enforcement in order to provide crisis intervention to individuals in psychiatric distress.  The City of Santa Rosa runs a program based on this model called inRESPONSE, which is a collaboration between the Department of Health Services (DHS), Santa Rosa Police Department, and the Santa Rosa Fire Department, as well as non-profits Buckelew Programs, Humanidad, and Catholic Charities.

The City of Petaluma, Rohnert Park, and Cotati have contracted with nonprofit Petaluma People Services Center (PPSC) to operate SAFE, or Specialized Assistance for Everyone, which is a variant of the MST model.

Key Milestone Update

• MST has partnered with Santa Rosa’s version of the program, inRESPONSE, by agreeing to provide clinical staff support (e.g., Behavioral Health Clinician).
• DHS-Human Resources began the continuous recruitment for the aforesaid job classification in November 2022.

Coordination and Partnership Update

• DHS is coordinating MST participation in the Department of Health Care Services (DHCS) Crisis Care Mobile Unit grant program.
• Through this grant, cities–Sant Rosa, Rohnert Park, Cotati, and Petaluma–will purchase a data system to collect data.
• The collected data can provide useful analysis on staffing, call-data, demographics, and diversions from hospitals’ Emergency Departments or jails.

Community, Equity, and Climate Update

MST address racial disparities by providing behavioral health treatment instead of routing individuals in crisis to hospital emergency departments or jail.  Since a disproportionate portion of such individuals are people of color on the lower end of the socio-economic scale, MST can treat rather than penalize the behavioral health situations of these population groups.

Funding Narrative

1. The County has set aside discretionary funding of $5.5 million over 3 years for MST expansion.  DHS will assess the performance of the city programs after 2 years to determine continued fiscal support.
2. From Measure-O, the BOS allocated a 1-time investment of $428K to Cotati/Rohnert Park, $428K to Petaluma, and $85,887 to Santa Rosa for a total of $941,887.
3. An additional $1.5 million per city from the Coronavirus Response & Relief Supplemental Appropriations Act (CRRSAA) could be made available upon successful application by Department of State Hospitals (DSH) and partner cities.