A partnership between the CSUF Police Department and the Counseling & Psychological Services Department will likely result in a more rapid response to calls involving a mental health crisis.
Expected to launch in the spring of 2024, the CAPS & UPD Mobile Crisis Team will consist of unarmed, unsworn safety specialists partnering with licensed mental health professionals to respond to nonviolent crisis calls, CSUF Police Chief Anthony Frisbee said.
“For the university specifically, the vast majority of our calls for people in crisis don’t involve violence, aggression or weapons,” Frisbee said. “So, for us, rather than tying or partnering the CAPS professional with a campus police officer, we’re connecting and partnering them with an unarmed safety professional.”
The new model frees up police officers to focus on prevention, intervention and responding to calls involving violence or criminal activity, the chief said.
Calls for service involving a student in crisis are fairly common, Frisbee said.
From January to August, campus police responded to 35 calls involving individuals on campus wanting to harm themselves, Frisbee said.
Other mental health-related calls for service involve welfare checks, domestic disputes, substance use and issues related to homeless individuals, he said.
Creating a mobile crisis team connecting safety counselors with mental health professionals was one of Frisbee’s main priorities when he took over as chief in March.
“One of the things we hit the ground running with here was really looking at holistic safety through a tiered response,” Frisbee said. “Changing that paradigm of having the right person and the right professional respond to the right calls.”
The chief reached out to Jaime Sheehan and Kevin Thomas, director and associate director, respectively, of CSUF CAPS.
CAPS offers a full spectrum of mental health-related services to CSUF students, ranging from preventative education, online resources,…
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