PORT ANGELES – The Port Angeles Police Department was recently awarded an $84,000 grant to continue its program that puts a mental health professional in the field with police officers.
The program, called “REdisCOVERY”, is a partnership between the PAPD and the Olympic Peninsula Community Clinic, and only nine such grants were awarded statewide.
Local police say mental health is the number one public safety issue facing Washington. People experiencing mental health crises are not necessarily committing crimes, but communities continue to rely on law enforcement to respond to those crises.
Deputy Police Chief Jason Viada:
“And I just want to make one point very clear is that, once a felony is committed then law enforcement is going to aggressively pursue prosecution to the fullest extent of the law. But if there’s a way that we can help a person through a difficulty that they’re experiencing before they commit a felony, then that is definitely a more efficient use of our resources. And that’s really what this program is all about, is intervening before the crime is committed so that we don’t have to deal with the prosecution afterwards.”.
The mental health professional working locally is Amy Miller, and it’s her job to connect people in need with service providers such as Peninsula Behavioral Health and North Olympic Health Network. Besides PAPD officers, Miller also works with other first responders including the Port Angeles Fire Department and Sequim Police Department.
“Well, a big part of this project is the community paramedic portion of it, and that help comes in the form of checking up on patients or helping them properly access healthcare. So many times we have patients who need help but they access the healthcare system through an ambulance ride to the emergency room, when really that is not the most efficient way that they could access healthcare. And the community paramedic can really help them get the best help that they need without activating emergency resources when it’s not an emergency.”
The $84,000 grant was awarded by the Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs as a part of a $2 million program established by the state legislature.