Eugene, OR: CAHOOTS

32 years ago the City of Eugene, Oregon developed an innovative community-based public safety system to provide mental health first response for crises involving mental illness, homelessness, and addiction. White Bird Clinic started CAHOOTS (Crisis Assistance Helping Out On The Streets) as a community policing initiative in 1989 (White Bird Clinic).*

The CAHOOTS model has been in the spotlight recently as the USA struggles to reimagine public safety. From the CAHOOTS website: "The program mobilizes two-person teams consisting of a medic (a nurse, paramedic, or EMT) and a crisis worker who has substantial training and experience in the mental health field. The CAHOOTS teams deal with a wide range of mental health-related crises, including conflict resolution, welfare checks, substance abuse, suicide threats, and more, relying on trauma-informed de-escalation and harm reduction techniques. CAHOOTS staff are not law enforcement officers and do not carry weapons; their training and experience are the tools they use to ensure a non-violent resolution of crisis situations. They also handle non-emergent medical issues, avoiding costly ambulance transport and emergency room treatment (White Bird Clinic)."

I learned about this incredible program through a New England Journal of Medicine article. According to data from 2019, CAHOOTS "teams responded to nearly 24,000 calls — about 17% of all 911-dispatch calls — and requested police backup in less than 1% of cases. The local community and police department have welcomed CAHOOTS, which saves Oregon taxpayers an average of $8.5 million in police and emergency department expenditures every year by effectively triaging emergency care needs to clinical response teams (New England Journal of Medicine, 2021).

This is the kind of community mental health support system that I dream of being implemented in every county, in every state in the USA. For more information, check out the White Bird Clinic's website at: https://whitebirdclinic.org/.

* Information copyright belongs to White Bird Clinic