Program supports those in mental health crisis

A pilot program in Arlington that allows social workers to directly respond to those in crisis received recognition last week.

Instead of the first response coming from either police or fire officials, social workers are able to help those who are having a mental health crisis or are in need of support.

The initiative has helped reduce the use of 911 calls for non-emergency situations in the city.

On March 4 the National Association of Social Workers’ Washington state chapter recognized the Center for Justice Social Work, which is running the program, with their Taylene Watson President's Award.

The center is a local organization which tries to increase access to social workers for those in need.

“We get referrals from the North County Fire and EMS, and from the police department for people who are struggling,” said Kaitlyn Goubeau, owner of the organization. “We do an assessment to find out what is going on and help them in whatever way we think will be effective."

The state of Washington provided the city of Arlington $750,000 in grant funding for the two-year pilot program to test how effective the services would be.

“It was something we had worked on with Sen. [Keith] Wagoner,” said Arlington Mayor Barbara Tolbert. “We’re very excited that this was able to make it’s way through the state legislature."

The program officially began in September of 2021, although it has taken some time to ramp up with hiring social workers and finding social work interns to staff the program.

As of late February, the program has served 147 clients, made 197 contact attempts to people in need and provided about 603 services.

“Those services could be coordinating care, providing therapy or getting them access to resources,” said Goubeau.

One of the main goals of the program is to reduce the call load on police and fire officials.

“There was an increasing number of calls in our area that don’t need a medical or police response,” said Tolbert.

One of the clients served by the program had six calls in a 90-day period.

“Once we were able to intervene with her she’s only called once,” said Goubeau.

Social workers were able to help bring some stability into the client’s life, she said.

“She had six different services that she qualified for but wasn’t aware of,” said Goubeau. “Because of that she was able to keep her housing and is now more open to getting treatment."

Often the program’s staff are able to help connect clients to additional services for help.

“For someone in crisis with behavioral or mental health problems it can be hard to navigate what agencies they are supposed to call,” said Tolbert.

The city of Arlington has had an Embedded Social Worker program since 2018, which sends out a police officer with a social worker to provide outreach to those with substance use disorders.

The new program is targeted more toward mental health crisis and is also separate from a police response.

“This program is different because you’re not necessarily embedded with the police or fire department and we can act as sort of a third arm of emergency response,” said Goubeau, who has been involved in local Embedded Social Worker programs since 2016.

Goubeau said the program recently helped a client that they likely had an easier time reaching.

“He has a really tumultuous relationship with law enforcement,” she said, and a social worker response allowed for a different angle to get in and help solve the issue.

Social workers typically have the training to respond to a wide range of mental health crises as well, which is something police officers may not necessarily be knowledgeable in, said Goubeau.

Tolbert said she is happy with the results coming out of the program so far.

If the pilot is successful she said the program could scale up to many jurisdictions around the state.

“We hope it will provide a lot of positive documentation so this program can expand,” Tolbert said.

The city was interested in the program because of the positive results they had seen from their embedded social workers.

“We had such a great response with the Embedded Social Worker program that helps get people into the right systems to help them,” she said. “I feel strongly that we should have those same supports for people with mental health issues."