With a little over 60,000 residents, Marietta, Georgia sits northwest of Atlanta.
The Marietta Police Department looks to expand crisis intervention services to de-escalate situations and help link individuals with behavioral health conditions to appropriate services. Cohort 2022.
Program Goals
With funding from the grant, the Marietta Police Department aims to:
- Develop and deploy a law enforcement-based co-responder team that consists of an officer and a behavioral health specialist or licensed clinical social worker
- Contract a behavioral health specialist or licensed clinical social worker to respond with the Community Response Unit and in some cases, respond to calls where crisis intervention and services may be needed
- Provide Crisis Intervention Training and additional behavioral health response training to officers involved in the program
- If behavioral health intervention is needed, Georgia law permits licensed clinical social workers to provide psychological evaluations in some cases which allows the co-responder team to provide immediate stabilization in case of urgent medical need or behavioral health crisis