SEATTLE — The City of Seattle is now responding to 911 calls in a new way since the CARE department took over operations last October. In addition to police and fire crews, the center can now dispatch community crisis responders, who are behavioral health specialists.
Last year, the 911 center saw more than 880,000 calls, which is the highest number it has seen in at least the past five years. Despite now having community crisis responders available to assist with mental health calls, the CARE Department said police staffing shortages has created challenges.
On Thursday morning, 911 call takers kept up with call volumes and didn't place anyone on hold. But one supervisor said that is not always the case, depending on the priority of calls and the number of people calling in about the same emergency situation.
“It can range from 2 to 5 minutes depending on staffing,” said Christina Fomby, a communications supervisor at the 911 Center. “It has a lot to do with what's going on in the city.”
On any given day in the Seattle 911 Center, between 10 to 17 people are answering calls. Another six to nine dispatchers are getting ahold of responders.
“We are the first person you call in a crisis or the first voice you hear when something goes wrong,” said Fomby. “And we make sure to get you the help that you need.”
Now, dispatchers have a new resource to send to calls. Since the CARE department took over call center operations last fall, they can now dispatch Community Crisis Responders who respond to behavioral health situations.
There are six responders who work in pairs. They are either dispatched with police or take over a call police originally responded to.
“We have funding for the six this year. I've heard the mayor say, and I believe, that the team will scale to 24 pretty quickly because we know the need is there,” said Amy Smith, the acting chief of the CARE Department.
She said not only should the Community Crisis Responder team be expanded, but said it is crucial the city gets more police officers. The most frequent priority one call the center received last year was for overdoses. It received more than 5,000 and so far this year, it has received more than 1,200 overdose calls.
“When you sit in 911 and you can see calls holding, there's an ebb and flow,” said Chief Smith. “Sometimes it can be very quiet and sometimes I have threat to life at ten different places and I've got only six officers in East precinct.”
Smith said sometimes a lack of police officers forces dispatchers to make hard choices.
“I've got a unit over here. Do I move this unit across town for priority three when I know it's likely that a priority one call comes in? It's really complex,” said Smith. “The staffing impacts everything right now.”
Smith's goal is to keep building up her department and other public safety departments.
“This has nothing to do with politics," she said. "I'm talking about human suffering and how best to respond to that human suffering to alleviate it."