Police Want To Deploy Street Teams To Help Direct Mentally Ill Toward Treatment
Mental health evaluation teams would respond to some of the calls the Fremont Police Department receives, with the goal of connecting the person or people with care providers or other local resources.
East Bay Times:
Fremont Police Program Aimed At Reducing Mental Health Holds
The Fremont Police Department wants to create a couple of two-person street teams to help steer mentally ill people toward treatment and services instead of a locked-up hospital room. Each “mobile evaluation team” would consist of a police officer and a licensed clinician from Alameda County Behavioral Health Care Services whose primary assignment would be to intervene in mental health crises situations that police currently are dispatched to handle...According to department statistics, Fremont officers between 2012 and 2016 annually responded to an average of slightly more than 850 reports in which people were determined to be a danger to themselves or others and transported to a county hospital for a mental health evaluation. Such calls are commonly referred to as 5150, after the California Welfare and Institutions code that defines when mental health holds should be used. (Geha, 4/26)
In other news from across the state —
Fresno Bee:
Fresno Medical Residency Program Gets $2.2 Million From CalViva Health
A proposed Fresno medical residency program got a financial boost Wednesday with a $2.2 million commitment from the locally governed Medi-Cal managed care plan for Fresno, Kings and Madera counties. CalViva Health said it has agreed to help Valley Health Team, a federally qualified health center, launch a Teaching Health Center residency program to train family doctors in Fresno. The program is scheduled to begin July 1 to replace the Sierra Vista Family Medicine Residency Program, which opened four years ago and will end June 1. (Anderson, 4/26)
KPCC:
What Should LAUSD Do About Its Ballooning Benefits Costs?
It's impossible to talk about the financial elephants on the back of the Los Angeles Unified School District, a blue ribbon panel concluded in 2015, without bringing up two things: pension and healthcare costs. ... By 2020, L.A. Unified's obligations to the two state-run agencies providing pensions to its employees will gobble up one out of every $10 that flows into the district's general fund. (Stokes, 4/27)