Broken Arrow Police Partners With Grand Mental Health For Crisis Response Team

Broken Arrow Police and Grand Mental Health are teaming up to provide two full-time Crisis Response Teams to respond to mental health-related calls.

The two-member teams will be an officer and mental health professional who ride together daily. 

Broken Arrow Police Officers have responded to nearly 200 mental health-related calls this year, whether that’s people who are suicidal, battling substance abuse, or homeless. Now, they will have two teams to help those people and connect them with services.

Officer Ryan Tyson and Mick Wood with Grand Mental Health are one of two Broken Arrow Police Crisis Response Teams patrolling the city.

“I think there was a need, especially for the citizens here in Broken Arrow and even for the state, just to be able to be out in the field and help provide them resources,” said Officer Tyson.

This partnership with Grand Mental Health is funded by a recent opioid settlement where Broken Arrow got funding to address the ongoing opioid crisis.

 “I think a lot of citizens may not be aware of the resources that are out there, even for me personally I didn’t know until I met with my partner from Grand Mental Health,” said Tyson. 

Broken Arrow Police launched the first CRT earlier this month, and they’ve already responded to more than 30 calls of people in crisis and were able to provide on-site help, connect those people with resources, and even follow up with some of those people days later. The second Crisis Response Team started this week, and they will work the evening shift. 

Officer Tyson says this is a way to put compassion into police work. 

“When we respond to those calls, oftentimes they may be homeless or struggle from substance abuse, and in the past, we’ve only had the option to take them to jail, but now that we have the resources available through Grand Mental Health, we can offer them those services,” said Tyson. 

Chris Stout with Grand Mental Health says there’s a need for behavioral mental health professionals who are embedded with police because although officers get mental health training, they aren’t experts. 

“The professionals we put with them, the care managers, the co-responders, they have a lot more training in mental health to be able to identify those people, what those illnesses may be, what those needs may be,” said Stout. 

Right now, one of the teams works the day shift, and the other works the evening shift, so they are able to serve the city from 7 a.m. to 1 a.m. four days a week. The hope is to eventually add a third team to work overnights.