New Grant Will Allow County to Fund Two New Co-Response Teams
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Wed Oct 02, 2019
The County of Santa Barbara just secured a $2.1 million grant to fund two new “co-response” teams in addition to the one that’s been operating for the past year. Co-response is the term used when law enforcement officers and mental-health case workers go out on patrol together, and the new grant will provide two Sheriff’s Office deputies with 40 hours of Crisis Intervention Training — designed to teach them de-escalation skills for dealing with people with mental illnesses — and team them up with two acute-care caseworkers in the Department of Behavioral Wellness.
The program was started as a test program a year ago with only the whisper of a prayer for future funding. The sheriff’s only co-response team initially went out only one day every other week and built from there.
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