Pennington Police will be part of the state’s ARRIVE Together program which designates mental health professionals to police situations involving a mental health crisis.
Council members through a resolution on June 1 approved a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the Capital Health System under the state funded ARRIVE Together program for mental health professionals to aid police on behavioral crisis calls.
“There are times when we go to calls and there is someone in crisis, we call out a mental health practitioner to come out and assess them. There are times when they say no they are fine they can follow up on their own,” said Lt. Daryl Burroughs, officer-in-charge of the Pennington Police Department.
“The one thing with this program is we can actually do a referral for them to come in later to check on these individuals. That is one of the most important things about this program.”
Pennington is part of the follow-up program in ARRIVE (Alternative Responses to Reduce Instances of Violence and Escalation) where officers in the department will make calls to Capital Health for services from a specialist when responding to individuals in a mental health crisis.
“This is an MOU that is promoted by the state’s Attorney General’s Office as well as the county prosecutor’s official. All municipalities in the state are being asked to adopt in their respective areas,” Mayor James Davy said.
“In our area it would be the Pennington Police Department working with Capital Health such that when there is a police response to situation that involves a mental health concern someone from the Capital Health Mental Health Services will be accompanying or at least have the individual be referred by the police department to Capital Health.”
Borough Attorney Walter Bliss explained that in the program health professionals financed by the state arrive at the scene of a behavioral health situation and will effectively diffuse and de-escalate a situation and ensure the person involved gets the appropriate mental health protection.
“Mental Health Service professional, meaning Capital Health, will provide one or more experienced specialists to participate in the program and respond to our call from the Pennington Police Department for assistance in situations where there is behavioral health activity that suggests a behavioral health issue,” he added.
“Capital Health will respond to our calls for service and Capital Health will collaborate with us on how best we should follow-up behavioral health situations. Capital Health will take the lead on following up on situations in Pennington involving behavioral health problems.”
The Capital Health mental health specialist responding to the situation is paid for by the state.
“This simply gives us a paid for Capital Health Specialist not only to work with us at the time and provide advice at the time of the incident… and also paid mental health support from Capital Health to follow up with these situations.”
ARRIVE is a program administered by the New Jersey Attorney General’s Office.
There are four goals with ARRIVE: Having mental health specialists rather than an officer address behavioral health concerns; use of mental health resources such as an officer calling a screener and wait for them to arrive on scene or make the decision to transport the person in crisis; keeping residents in the community; and improving trust between law enforcement and the community.
