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Early intervention program to stem domestic violence in Poughkeepsie faces resistance

Saba Ali

March 03, 2021 |

Poughkeepsie Journal |

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1500-3000 Words

Response Location: United States, Kingston, New York

An early-intervention program targets people suspected of domestic violence with services meant to end the abuse through deterrence and counseling rather than after-the-fact punishment. In Kingston, New York, the Intimate Partners Violence Intervention program has contributed to a 36% drop in reported abuse and a low recidivism rate. Multiple agencies provide services aimed at prevention of abuse, while police arrest threats escalate depending on the severity and frequency of the abuse. In nearby Poughkeepsie, the program's development has been stalled by objections from criminal defense lawyers.

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Schools Look To Algorithms To Flag Students Who May Harm Themselves

Alisa Roth

March 03, 2021 |

NPR |

Radio |

3-5 Minutes

Response Location: United States, Mason City, Iowa

Companies like Gaggle are typically used by school districts to track student online behavior, but now they are tracking something else—self-harm. Machine learning flags words that might indicate a student is thinking of hurting themselves. “It gives us insight into what the student's thinking.” Gaggle identified 64,000 student references to suicide and self-harm. The company claims to have saved 927 student lives. In Mason City, districts receive alerts when a student’s search is flagged. “Nicole Pfirman says there have been a few times where she believes an alert saved a kid's life.”

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Here's What Happens When Social Workers, Not Police, Respond To Mental Health Crises

Christina Jedra

March 01, 2021 |

Honolulu Civil Beat |

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1500-3000 Words

Response Location: United States, Eugene, Oregon

Honolulu could benefit from adopting the approach to mental-health crisis calls to 911 that Eugene, Oregon, uses. But it would need to make big changes first in its critical infrastructure. Eugene's CAHOOTS program sends counselors and medics on 17% of the calls coming to its city's 911 center, saving millions on police, ambulances, and emergency room visits. Non-police responders de-escalate potential conflicts and get people the help they need without arrest or violence. Honolulu is primed to examine this approach, as many cities have done, but it's not a simple matter to start it.

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Cops and Hippies

David Byrne

February 26, 2021 |

Reasons to be Cheerful |

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800-1500 Words

Response Location: United States, Eugene, Oregon

The CAHOOTS program, which sends medics and counselors on certain 911 calls instead of the police, has become a national model in the wake of 2020's criminal-justice protests. But its roots reach back half a century, when a free medical clinic serving the hippie counterculture emerged as a public-health response to drug, mental health, and other non-violent emergencies. CAHOOTS has grown into a 24/7 service that saves Eugene millions in policing and medical spending, and saves many on the streets from unnecessarily punitive interactions with the police.

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An AI is training counselors to deal with teens in crisis

Karen Hao Abby Ohlheiser

February 26, 2021 |

MIT Technology Review |

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800-1500 Words

Response Location: United States

Crisis hotlines and chat services are turning to technologies such as AI tools to help assist an oft-overburdened system. At The Trevor Project, AI is used as both a risk assessment tool and as a role-play simulator to train volunteer counselors to correspond with callers. Users of these tools stress that they are not a replacement for counselors, but rather a tool to help the humans in these roles.

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How does Portland's Street Response Team compare with a similar program in Denver?

Dan Haggerty

February 24, 2021 |

KGW-TV |

Broadcast TV News |

3-5 Minutes

Response Location: United States, Denver, Colorado

Although Eugene, Oregon's long-running, successful CAHOOTS program serves as one model for the new Portland Street Response, a more relevant model can be found in Denver's STAR program. Like CAHOOTS, STAR responds to mental-health and other crisis calls with medics and counselors rather than police officers. But Denver's size, demographics, and homelessness make it much more analogous to Portland. In STAR's first six months, it handled nearly 750 calls without a single arrest. Both STAR and PSR are starting small, so more resources are needed if the pilot projects succeed.

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‘I'm Stronger Now:' Support Centers For Trauma Survivors Expanding In Illinois

Patrick Smith

February 08, 2021 |

WBEZ |

Radio |

5-15 Minutes

Response Location: United States, Illinois

Since 2017, two publicly funded trauma recovery centers in Illinois have helped violent-crime survivors cope with the emotional fallout that can accompany a loved one's murder or surviving their own violent attack. Case managers help people get group and individual therapy. They can also line up financial aid to help people pay for food and rent, when their trauma interferes with their ability to make a living. The centers, based on a model developed in California as a way to foster public safety through healing communities, will expand by three more in the state in 2021.

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Health care workers replaced Denver cops in handling hundreds of mental health and substance abuse cases — and officials say it saved lives

Li Cohen

February 06, 2021 |

CBS News |

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800-1500 Words

Response Location: United States, Denver, Colorado

Denver's STAR program (Support Team Assisted Response) replaced police officers with health professionals on 748 calls for help. In incidents involving mental health, homelessness, and substance abuse, police backup was never needed, no one was arrested, and minor crises did not risk escalating into violence because of police presence. The six-month pilot project will expand to more parts of the city and more hours of the week, with an infusion of city money to supplement the private funding that got the program started.

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Denver successfully sent mental health professionals, not police, to hundreds of calls

Grace Hauck

February 06, 2021 |

USA Today |

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800-1500 Words

Response Location: United States, Denver, Colorado

In its first six months, Denver's STAR program (Support Team Assistance Response) handled 748 emergency calls that in the past would have gone to the police or firefighters. Two-person teams of a medic and clinician helped people with personal crises related mainly to homelessness and mental illness. None of the calls required police involvement and no one was arrested. The city plans to spend more to expand the program, which is meant to prevent needless violence and incarceration from calls to the police that other types of first-responders can better address.

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After Capitol riot, desperate families turn to groups that ‘deprogram' extremists

Paulina Villegas Hannah Knowles

February 05, 2021 |

The Washington Post |

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1500-3000 Words

Response Location: United States

Groups like Parents for Peace and Life After Hate use former radicals to counsel people in the grip of right-wing extremism. Bombarded by pleas for help by families since the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol riot, these groups use a series of meetings to help people examine the roots of their ideology, with an aim of helping them discover for themselves the irrationality of their hatred and other beliefs. While one researcher says the methods show signs of effectiveness, success is defined mainly in individual stories of change, in a hard-to-measure process of "personal and idiosyncratic" introspection.

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