COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF PHILADELPHIA JOINT COMMITTEES ON PUBLIC SAFETY AND PUBLIC HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES Room 400, City Hall Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Monday, March 17, 2025 10:17 a.m. PRESENT: COUNCILMAN CURTIS JONES, JR., CHAIR COUNCILWOMAN NINA AHMAD, CHAIR COUNCILWOMAN KENDRA BROOKS COUNCILMAN JIM HARRITY COUNCILMAN RUE LANDAU COUNCILWOMAN QUETCY M. LOZADA
There we go. This is a Joint Committee of the Committee on Public Safety and Health and Human Services. I'm your Co-Chair Councilman Curtis Jones, and we are here to review Resolution No. 240703. Ms. Stack, would you read the title of that resolution.
Resolution 15 No. 240703 titled, Authorizing the Joint Committees on Public Safety and Public Health and Human Services to hold hearings to investigate the effectiveness and potential expansion of mobile mental health units administered by the Department of Behavioral Health and Intellectual Disability Services.
Thank you so much. And would you take the role so we can establish a quorum.
Thank you so much. A quorum has been established to review this resolution. I want to open up by saying that this is -- like in public service, if you live long enough and if you watch and pay attention close enough, you see progress that things actually do change sometimes for the better. But it is always important for every now and then for authors of legislation to go back and take a look at well, how are we doing, how can we do it better and to give kudos where appropriate and to give constructive criticism and where there's not. And also, at the end of the day if there is a budget implication, to at least know about that request. So with that, we are taking a look at in my opinion the community response, but also unbeknownst to some of the people testifying here but we tried to work it out in advance, the co-responder response. And my colleague, I didn't mean to traumatize her this morning. I talked about the evolution of this response due to an incident in her District with Walter Wallace. And I'm going to let her speak to that situation. But ironically, we have a 7:00 a.m. every Monday morning roll call with all of the high schools in the western part of my District, meaning West Philly. And we talk about public safety and all of those things that go into making sure our scholars, our babies, get to and from school safely. And sometimes we have to protect them from themselves, from others and even the system. And in this conversation one of my principals, who will not be named, said that he had an incident that week where a 240-ish pound African American man who suffers from some intellectual disabilities found out in class that his parent had died, and in that process had an episode, started tearing up the room. He was distraught. And when he went into the room being called to assist the teacher, he pushed -- the student pushed him. And at that point, I'm on bated breath like what happened next. He said he refused to call the police because that student's grief would not be taken into consideration and possibly be the result of some intervention that wasn't warranted in the continuum of response to a situation. This is very similar to what happened to Walter Wallace or could have happened. But thank God he de-escalated the process to the degree that he was able to cope with the situation peacefully. So with that, that's the purpose of -- so every now and then we want to look back and see, yeah, we had this great idea 50,000 feet in the City Hall. But how is it working on the ground, what can we draw from it to make it better. And with that, I want to recognize my colleague from the 3rd District.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. As you point out, the tragic situation with Walter Wallace, Jr. crystallized for me certainly why we needed mobile crisis units, why we needed to have skilled mental health professionals to respond to people when they're in the midst of a crisis. I'll never forget that day and what happened in watching later on the body camera footage. It stood out to me that that interaction was 41 seconds. I know that it was 41 seconds because I'll never forget. And certainly, Walter Wallace, Jr. had a knife. And certainly, he was behaving erratically. But I will never forget his mom and his neighbors screaming to the police that he wasn't a threat, to have kindness and patience with him. But we know what ultimately happened. And the reason why we need a more compassionate response than what we saw that day is that this was devastating for everyone. It was devastating for the family who will never have their loved one back. It was devastating for the neighbors. It was I believe devastating for the policemen. In watching that video after the shooting happened, there was this sort of what did I do moment. And of course, it was devastating for our community. It was the second time in a matter of months that we had civil unrest in the community in response to that police shooting. So this is very important. It's very important to have a skilled mental health response when we are dealing with a mental health crisis. And I can only imagine if we would have had that on that day, on that October 26th, that we might have had a different situation. And we might have had Walter Wallace, Jr. alive. And so, it's for that reason that I joined with Treatment not Trauma for several budget years to advocate for millions of dollars to the City's Mobile Crisis Unit program. But we have to make sure that it's operating in the way that we need. We can't -- it's not just about allocating the money during budget. It's about making sure that we are implementing this initiative well because as we've seen, it's life or death. And so, thank you so much for having this very important conversation.
Thank you, Chair. And good morning, everyone. And thank you for being here for this really important hearing. As my colleague Councilmember Gauthier just outlined, how do we very carefully decriminalize mental health responses. And I think we have enough examples of how we haven't done that. But I think this pathway, which all of you have worked so hard for, actually makes us very hopeful. And I just echo everything that has been said that it is about transparency, accountability because we have to respond to our community, right. They have to know what's going on. And we have to be able to tell them the resources we invested in this space is bearing fruit. And one of the things I have found in my one year being on Council is our constituents just don't have enough information of all the services we provide, you provide, right. And part of that is being a cheerleader for the resources you are providing for our community and being that conduit to say change is happening. We just said we want to celebrate good, you know, the things that are working. But we can't celebrate them if we don't know them either. So I think making those changes, making sure we have a way to communicate and show that their tax dollars are being used effectively and compassionately. So thank you all for all the work you do. And I look forward to this hearing to give us much more information and see where we can be helpful, as mentioned, in the budget process as well. Thank you.
So I'd like to for the record recognize Member Brooks and Member Landau who are also --
And Member Brooks would like to be recognized. Member Brooks and Member Landau. CWRO: Thank you, Chair Jones, for bringing us together for this hearing on Mobile Crisis Units. When we established this Program in 2022, it was a major step forward for mental health access and violence prevention for families here in Philadelphia. And it has become a model for cities across this country. Three years later I stay confident that this program has been invaluable to people here in Philadelphia. I heard Councilmember Gauthier speak on the incident that we all remember four years ago with Walter Wallace, and I don't want to rehash that, but we realized it was a mental health crisis. And these Mental Health Crisis teams, they grew out of pain and outrage of a tragedy, but also came out of it was hope that this will never happen again. So now, when we have families going through a crisis, we can call 988 to access trained medical health providers instead of involving police. And in most cases, counselors are being provided -- are there to provide care and resources over the phone. But in some cases, the crisis requires an inperson response. And that's where the most Mobile Crisis Teams come in handy. These teams have been bringing care and expertise directly to people's homes and the community and they have been saving lives. I want to share a brief story to highlight how I've seen the Mobile Crisis team at work. Some time after the program was launched, I saw a young man in the midst of a mobile health crisis. He was in public unclothed, and my mind immediately went to Walter Wallace, Jr. Thankfully, someone called 988 and a Mobile Crisis team arrived to provide care and support without involving police. That's one day I can see our city in action when legislation works for the people, and it was a feel good moment. Each day over 200 Philadelphians are reaching out for mental health support. As their awareness of 988 grows, the need will continue to grow and we must be prepared to meet that need with fully-funded, fully-staffed Crisis Response teams. Through the budget process, we need to look at how we can continue to expand this lifesaving program. Just as we commit to supporting firefighters and EMTs, we must commit to supporting mental health first responders who are saving lives, the lives of Philadelphians when they're in a crisis. So thank you so much, Chair Jones, for bringing this together. And I look forward to hear from several witnesses today.
Thank you so much. Member Landau, did you want to speak --
No? Okay. With that, Ms. Stack, can you tell us the first panel to testify.
Interim Commissioner Dr. Marquita Williams from DBHIDS. Also available for questions will be Dr. Tierra Pritchett, Kenny Solanke, and Dr. Lisa Colton.
Thank you so much for what you do. Please come up to the witness table. (Witnesses approached Witness table.)
Thank you so very much. So if you can state your name and begin your testimony, we can begin.
Good morning. I am Dr. Marquita Williams, Interim Commissioner for the Department of Behavioral Health and Intellectual Disability Services. Good morning, Chair Curtis Jones, Chair Nina Ahmad, Vice-Chair Lozada and members of the Joint Committees on Public Safety and Public Health and Human Services. As I said I am Dr. Marquita Williams, Interim Commissioner of the Department of Behavioral Health and Intellectual Disability Services. Joining me today are Kenny Solanke, Senior Director of Crisis Operations; Dr. Lisa Colton, Director of Crisis Related Services; and Dr. Tierra Pritchett, Deputy Commissioner of DBHIDS for Administration, Finance and Quality. Thank you for the opportunity to provide updates on the expansion of Philadelphia's mobile crisis response services under our Crisis 2.0 framework and to address the considerations outlined in Resolution No. 240703, introduced by Chair Curtis Jones. This resolution calls for an evaluation of the effectiveness, challenges and potential expansion of mobile crisis response teams, which have become an essential part of our city's behavioral health Infrastructure. Today I will provide an update on our mobile crisis response efforts. Philadelphia's crisis services system has undergone significant transformation through the implementation of the Crisis 2.0 framework in the past four years. This framework includes several components: One, the expansion of our Community Mobile Crisis Response Teams that now provide services citywide 24/7. The city's first Behavioral Health Urgent Care Center. The addition of a fifth Crisis Response Center in the city that is located in West Philadelphia. And the expansion of the Philadelphia Crisis Line that includes the 988 National Suicide and Crisis Line Initiative, which has received national recognition. Starting with our Crisis Mobile Response Teams, in 2022 we contracted with four providers, Elwyn, PATH, Consortium and JFK that manage up to 29 Community Mobile Crisis Response Teams 8 hours a day, seven days a week 9 across Philadelphia. Each provider 10 is responsible for a geographic 11 region and they can respond and 12 deliver immediate supports in the 13 community for individuals 14 experiencing mental health crises. 15 This critical resource 16 helps to reduce the need for law 17 enforcement involvement when an 18 individual is having a behavioral 19 health-related crisis. Between 20 January 2023 and January 2025, 21 approximately 14,302 dispatches 22 were recorded and that number 23 continues to grow. 24 On September 3, 2024, we established the city's first Adult Behavioral Health Urgent Care located at 3125 North Broad Street --
Yes. On September 3, 2024, we established the City's first Adult Behavioral Health Urgent Care located at 3125 North Broad Street. This urgent care center marks a critical step in providing additional capacity to our city's overall crisis system and is a resource that provides people with same-day crisis services without the need for appointments. In the first five months of operation between September 2004 and January of this year, the Behavioral Health Urgent Care has conducted 1133 service encounters, reducing the need for a more acute crisis intervention. Additionally, DBHIDS opened a fifth Adult Crisis Response Center in West Philadelphia at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, (HUP) Cedar in September 2023 which has increased our capacity to address the growing needs for immediate crisis evaluation services in West Philadelphia. Finally, a significant part of our crisis system capacity building efforts is the expansion of the Philadelphia Crisis Line, also known as PCL, staffing. In 2022 in preparation for the national launch of the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, our city's crisis response infrastructure significantly expanded to increase capacity to provide access to immediate crisis supports for Philadelphians. Thanks to the funding from City Council, DBHIDS was able to expand PCL staffing to significantly meet the anticipated needs of the callers to 988. PCL now handles over 6000 calls per month, providing telephonic crisis intervention, clinical consultation and seamless dispatch of mobile crisis teams when inperson support is required. Additionally, the collaboration between 988 and 911 which co-locates 988 counselors in the 911 radio room, has led to a 36% increase in warm transfers of behavioral health calls from 911 to 988 during this same period, ensuring that individuals in crisis receive the appropriate mental health Care swiftly and effectively. Our efforts to enhance the crisis system in Philadelphia has been complemented by a comprehensive 988 public awareness campaign, promoting the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline and educating the public on available resources. This campaign is ongoing and it includes partnerships with local media, sports teams and community organizations. This awareness campaign has significantly increased the utilization of crisis services and contribute to a better public understanding of mental health supports. I'd like to now spend a little bit of time sharing with you how we have operationalized and monitored these efforts and where we see that the system and resources put in place are excelling and where there have been challenges that we are actively addressing. The effectiveness of our mobile crisis teams is measured through a set of key performance indicators, including response times, community stabilization and community feedback. I would like to highlight some of our most significant achievements: The primary goal of mobile crisis response teams is to stabilize individuals in the community wherever possible, thus minimizing the need for hospitalization. Mobile crisis disposition data shows that over 50% of dispatches resulted in no 22 need for urgent or emergent services and that these cases were resolved successfully in the community. This means that the crisis was resolved, allowing individuals to remain in their homes and communities with appropriate supports. The rate of involuntary commitments, also known as 302s, has decreased to 17% reflecting a shift towards voluntary community-based care. Additionally, voluntary evaluations at Crisis Response Centers or CRCs are around 6%, reflecting improved crisis resolution at the community level. DBHIDS works to make strides in reducing response times for our Crisis Mobile Community Response Teams through targeted strategic enhancements. The addition of GPS-enabled dispatch technology has allowed the PCL Crisis Line to continuously track and monitor the location of all mobile crisis teams.
This realtime capacity helps identify the nearest team to the caller, resulting in faster dispatch processes and improved response times. Our goal for CMCRT Teams to arrive on the scene is within 50 minutes of dispatch. This is the benchmark aligned with best practices nationally for crisis intervention. Recent data indicates that with the expanded capacity and our improved technology our median response time has been reduced to 50 minutes citywide. Our four CMCRT providers include Elwyn, PATH, JFK, and the Consortium. And while they have all worked at meeting the 50-minute best practices benchmark, JFK and the Consortium teams have operated consistently within the 50-minute response benchmark. It is important to note that the Consortium CMCRT Team also has provided mental health supports to individuals sheltered in the City's Warming Centers during January. DBHIDS also conducts customer satisfaction surveys for people served by CMCRT. And the surveys conducted between June 2022 and May 2024 found that more than 70% of respondents rated their experiences as highly satisfactory, highlighting the teams' helpfulness, professionalism, ability to de-escalate crises and provide compassionate care. We continue to monitor customer satisfaction closely sharing results with providers to ensure continuous quality improvement. While our mobile crisis response teams have seen notable successes, there are some areas that require ongoing attention. There is high turnover among frontline staff and leadership, and this remains to be a persistent challenge affecting response times and continuity of care. We've observed slower response rates during high call volume periods when a provider is experiencing staffing changes or when dispatches are made outside of a provider's region. To address response time challenges, particularly during peak hours, we have supported providers in adding Bridge Teams. The Bridge Teams increase the number of available teams during the high-volume periods. With a 3 million increase in funding for FY24 from City Council to enhance our crisis system, we have provided increases to provide a budget for the addition of these Bridge Teams which have proven effective in reducing response times during busy periods. These additional shifts have helped to decrease delays in dispatch and arrival times, especially in the busiest regions like West and Southwest Philadelphia. Overall ongoing support will be needed to sustain these efforts and to achieve a stable workforce. There's also a need to continue to ensure standardized trainings across providers. We want to ensure that there's a standardized crisis intervention training program for all mobile crisis team staff to ensure consistent high-quality care across all providers and we will need consistent funding and resources to implement the highest quality of care for the people we serve. We also want to improve the current process and our reliance on law enforcement for transporting individuals under involuntary commitment. Police transports are not ideal, as police officers are not trained behavior health professionals and not equipped to deal with the variety of illnesses they may face. Establishing a dedicated behavioral health transport team would alleviate the burden on law enforcement, streamline the process of involuntary commitment transports and improve the overall experience for individuals in crisis. 0 framework has strengthened our behavior health crisis system providing timely, effective and compassionate care. DBHIDS remains a committed partner in this endeavor, dedicated to providing a trauma-responsive, equity-driven, crisis responses system for the residents of Philadelphia. We look forward to continuing to collaborate with City Council and other stakeholders to further refine these crisis services. Thank you for your continued support and for holding these important hearings.
We look forward to working together to enhance the sustainability and effectiveness of Philadelphia's mobile crisis response services. My colleagues and I are available for your questions.
SO does that mean no one else is testifying at this point?
Okay. So let me first say that a part of my job description, part of all of our job descriptions is to listen for a living. And I listen. It is always good when I'm thinking about questions and you're answering them automatically in your testimony. That is always a good feeling for me and probably many of my colleagues. It says that your preparation and testimony was comprehensive. So kudos to you.
Let me ask you: Where do we stand by way of national models? I don't think we were the first to do a co-responder model, but I'm thinking we were right up there with some of the groundbreaking cities that have done this. Do you have a --
Yes. We weren't the first, but we were certainly early adopters of the model.
And when we talk about 14,000 responses, how do we match up to other cities?
You know, I'm not sure about the call volume for other cities. But I can get that information to you.
Because every now and then it's good to be able to say to our colleagues in other places that good things come from Philadelphia.
Can you describe for us some of the types, general types, of responses and when you get there -- so from the easiest to resolve to some of the more challenging to resolve. Give us a sense of those out of that 14,000.
Absolutely. I'm going to bring in Dr. Lisa Colton and Kenny Solanke.
Hello. Oh, hi. My name is Kenny Solanke. I'm the Senior Director of Crisis Operations for DBHIDS.
I'm Lisa Colton. I'm the Director Of Crisis Related Systems for DBH.
So an example of an easy-to-resolve crisis that a mobile dispatch could respond to would be -- this is actually somebody -- the team gets there and the individual is not there or the individual refuses support. So that's an easy one. It's an easy fix or the team gets there, they provide the evaluation and the assessment and they see that there's a need for this individual to go to the CRC. And there's an agreement that this person will go to the CRC, transported by the mobile team. Those are fairly easy. But then you have instances where in some cases they arrive and people will tell them, I have a gun with me or we have a knife or there is a complicated issue with the family. And I can have Lisa give you more specifics in terms of the kinds of difficult dispatches that could take longer than the median, which is about 30 minutes. This could take maybe an hour.
Oh, sure. For the simple dispatches where perhaps the individual is gone or refuses to speak, the mobile team will still meet with the family or whomever the caller was. So this will be a third-person call probably. So it's not as if they just drive away. There's still an intervention that occurs and ongoing support can be offered to those families. For more complicated situations, we could have someone who is what we call a barricade. Someone who might be in their room 20 with the door closed suggesting that they don't want people to come in. It's unclear what's in the room. If the situation is safe or unsafe, if police support is needed, something like that. I'm trying to think. We have parents who really are frightened of their children, having police intervention and the child is refusing or even an adult, an older child, an adult child. So there could be some negotiation that goes on for some time with the team. It might even include coming back, you know, offering a service. Well, okay, so for now things are settled. We'll wait until morning. We'll come back and re-engage, that kind of thing. So it could be an extended intervention.
So I remember going over to the 911 Center with my colleagues, but one of them was Mayor Parker. And when we went over there and looked at that and saw that kind of difficult kind of balancing act. Help me to understand, usually is it the police that respond first and then the mental health component? How does that work or do they go together?
If the call comes through 911, then it is the police who respond first. Even if the call is transferred over to us, and then a mobile team can also respond. Sometimes police request a mobile team when they are onsite to a call that hasn't come to 988. But if the call goes first to 988 and we do not see any safety concerns, the mobile teams will go first.
So it's also my understanding that there is a log that lists if Member Harrity's -- I live with Member Harrity and I have ongoing crisis problems, that that number is logged in. And so, there's almost an alert that Member Jones might be going through crisis. How does that work?
So, yes, there are frequent callers to 911. We're talking upwards of 200 calls a day. Those go to a particular detective. And we work with that detective to discuss what the caller's saying. We try to engage the caller. The trouble is if the caller refuses to be engaged. So we have had different examples where we've sent teams out to those calls. We've also engaged the co-responder team. Sometimes police sometimes -- I'm sorry. Callers to 911 want police, right. They're frightened. They're calling about something that's scaring them. So the co-responders teams can be incredibly helpful. So we've had that experience. We've also had this detective go out with some of our teams because she often communicates with these people that call multiple times to 911, so she can be a liaison. The goal being to try to engage them in some kind of additional intervention that's not calling police.
You mentioned that there are how many units available? 39, I think.
There are four providers and they each have a team per shift, including the Bridge Teams. So when you add all of those shifts together, there's about 29 teams operating in a 24-hour period.
And usually you are deploying them based on volume of calls. How do you determine that?
Yes, we're deploying them based on whoever is closest to the caller. We have a GPS-enabled capacity to see where the teams are. So if I'm calling from City Hall, whoever the team is that's closest to me which will probably be JFK, will be the team that would dispatch to my call. So even though they are regionalized, we have Elwyn out in the part of Philadelphia and PATH out in the Northeast and JFK is here, we really want to focus on getting to our callers as soon as possible. So whoever's closest to that individual is the team that we're going to dispatch.
Finally, are those teams stationary or are they mobile going around? How to does that work?
That's a very good question. They're stationary. But if there's a let's say Team A and Team B, if she's on a call and I am on another call, when she's done that call, we don't have any calls to dispatch. They may have some downtime so they can go to their office, use the bathroom or have a lunch break or whatever the case may be. But more often than not, we are part of the reason we decided to do mobile GPS-enabled technology is to ensure that as you're wrapping up a call, we're giving you another dispatch close to the vicinity where you are, so you're not running back to your office just to come right back down to where the caller is. We have one of our providers here who can speak a little bit more to how they manage their teams and dispatches.
Okay. All right. They will testify later I take it. Okay. Member Gauthier.
Good morning, Commissioner and Team. Thank you so much for your testimony today and for sharing wonderful information about how you all are implementing the mobile crisis unit model. It's important work, it's groundbreaking work and we appreciate you. But it is work that we want to grow and make even better. And in the spirit of that, I have some questions. First, I think we're all aware that there have been some issues with the contract for the Consortium, which serves a large portion of my District. And in fact, 19143 in my Council District is a zip code that has been utilizing mobile crisis units the most. And so, I want to ask about the plan to ensure continuity of care for all of the patients that have been served or that are being served by the Consortium right now?
Councilwoman, obviously this is a very complex situation. There's a lot of parts involved. And so, we're not at liberty to talk about it here today right now. But the continuity of care for the clients is our number one concern as well.
Okay. Can you talk about the kinds of things that we're considering around the continuity of care?
Absolutely. So we're considering the level of care that the clients are enrolled in and what providers in the event that we needed to move forward we would be able to transfer them to. So making sure, as you said, that clients don't go without services.
Do we feel some level of confidence that there are enough providers and enough teams to serve those patients or do we feel that we would have to grow the network in any way?
At this current time we believe that there are enough providers.
Thank you. I consider these to be emergency services. I consider these to be lifesaving services. I hope that you all do too. Given that, do we feel that a goal of 50 minutes for a response time is adequate?
Well, the national standard is 50 minutes. We are trying to get under that as best we can. We are really proud that we have reached that 50-minute median. We would love to get it even lower, and that's what we're consistently working on.
I seem to believe that we've had conversations with DBHIDS in a prior administration granted where the goal was to get to 30 minutes. Do you have any information on why we've sort of left that goal to the side for a 50-minute goal?
I have to own the 30-minute goal. When we wrote the RFP in 2021, we thought that Philadelphia was small enough. And if we had a provider in each of the different regions that of course they can travel. I don't think what we anticipated was traffic and the distance and some of the things that happened in just in the course of the day that will make it very difficult for providers to travel from one point to another. So 30 minutes is a dream. There's no mobile team within the country that's able to make it to their destination 30 minutes. 45, 50 minutes, an hour, two hours is more the norm. But we're still working on reducing that 50 minutes to let's say 45. If we get to 45, then I'm still trying to go down. And how do we get there? By expanding the teams, by having more boots on the ground.
I want to commend you for being ambitious and having a 30-minute goal, even if nowhere else in the country is reaching that. And I would imagine that with the thousands and thousands of people that we've served is probably a good dream for us to have. Is there a way that you would be able to let our Council know how we would ever reach a 30-minute goal?
So we just had a recent team expansion. Each provider added a Bridge Team just this past fall, summer. And we want to see a whole year what does that look like. I think it's gotten us to 50. So how many more teams would we need, do we need another Bridge Team to layer. So at the busiest times we have not just the day and the evening and the bridge, so each provider will have maybe three at those core hours. Do we need four teams? So maybe that's what's going to do it for us. But mind you, as ambitious as we are real life happens. So you have a provider that has a team member who's sick or they're on vacation or something happens, right away that team is off the grid. We can't use them. So those are the kinds of things that impede our ability to have those core teams functioning seven days a week at that critical mass. So, yes, adding more teams will be the answer to that I think in (inaudible) of sickness, vacation and people leaving the job to go to something else because that's the other problem. There's a huge turnover. This is very difficult work, and we want to recognize them as behavioral health first responders.
Can I ask that this budget cycle you submit to us a plan for how we could get down to 30 minutes and what that would entail?
Also, I know we've been talking about the Consortium sort of offline. I would ask to continue those conversations so that I can understand in more detail what the continuity of care looks like for those patients. And then I have one last question. Could you talk more about the types of calls and scenarios other than suicidal ideation that are being transferred to 988 from 911? And then can you also speak vice versa about what kind of calls are being transferred from 988 to 911?
Sure. So one of the functions that the mobile teams do is that they can go out and facilitate a 302 petition with the family. So those kinds of calls would be transferred from 911. They would come to us. They wouldn't require any kind of a police intervention. Additionally, someone asking for information about the system, questions about what do I do, my husband is not feeling well, I don't know how to negotiate this system or maybe a passerby who sees someone in a wheelchair who looks like they need support. Nothing overtly dangerous, those kinds of questions. More, you know, inquiring for support for assistance. That kind of thing.
Slight follow-up: Is this data that we're tracking? And if so, are you able to provide that to the Committee?
So data from the police -- the police system and our system are not the same. So we have to ask them for that kind of data.
Thank you, Chair. This is extremely informative. I have a few questions. One is the high turnover, right. We know this is an issue in terms of retaining people and it's a high-stress job. So can you speak to, if I'm correct, what are the reasons for this high turnover and what the solutions could be to this high turnover? And how do we compare to other cities where we have this model in terms of their turnover?
I can say that because 988 is across the country there are three requirements for 988. You need to have a 24/7 988 call center. You need to have a 24/7 Mobile Crisis Response Team and 24/7 Crisis Response or Crisis Stabilization Center. So what we're doing in Philadelphia, we're ahead of the game since 2019, 2017. Other states are now trying to catch up. And as we have our national 988, meetings, we're all coming up against the same thing. It's really difficult to get people to do this job, especially when we're looking for Master's level clinicians to be a crisis response specialist and we're paying them barely minimum wage. So I think the problem is, and this has to be from a national to state perspective, we have to elevate these roles as behavioral health First responders. so they can get paid accordingly. Thanks to you we were able to increase the budgets for our providers. They were able to provide salary increases for the existing staff and then bring on board Bridge Teams at a higher salary. But I think we can do all of that. My concern is there's also this idea of safety. It takes a different kind of person to do this job. You have to feel very comfortable and confident in your ability to engage and use your clinical skill set to help people de-escalate crisis. Not everybody is able to do that. And I think after some time some people just burn out and they want to do something else. So a lot of the things that we focus on when we meet with our providers is this idea of wellness, not just from the provider side but also from the crisis call, the 988 counselors that we have that are constantly hearing this calls. So I think it's ensuring wellness providing some value to the job and increasing the salaries of the people that do the work.
So thank you for that. It's clear, obviously, salary is important but the conditions of the job too. It would be very useful to do an economic modeling of saying investing in this space downstream would save us so much money, right. And I think if nothing else moves people, if we could set up some paradigm where we can then allow us to make the argument of why investing here is so important. So I would love to see what you're able to give us. Maybe we can employ all these big institutions who love to do this work because that would be a value add locally, statewide and nationally, right.
We have to make that value proposition. The second question I had was about de-escalation training for police. Do you work with the police to see -- I recall Dr. Marquita Williams saying that normalizing what the training looks like across the board from the provider side is important. But also, are you the people who are training the police for de-escalation because some calls because of violence, potential violence they get called, who handles that and how do we assess that?
Sure. So the police have a social worker named Erin O'Donnell who does the CIT training to all the officers. We do have different members of DBHIDS who participate in that training. And then we on the Crisis Line specifically have regular clinical conferences with the CERT Teams, with the Co-Responder Teams, to talk about specific cases. We also have a very fluid relationship with them. They will call us onsite if they have a question about something, about how to do something, about what to do, where to go. So we have a very nice relationship with the CERT Team and with the officers on that team. And we also -- we don't have direct training with the with the precincts but we do communicate with them. I'm actually working with the Airport right now around their police and looking for support with their homeless team.
So the reason I ask is, one, for standardizing the response from all the law enforcement. And you mentioned they have one person training a certain group, but this is -- I think our police force would really benefit from the entire force, particularly those on the beat, to get this level of training which could be something your department can offer for a price, right. And that could -- I'm just saying, it's all moving the money around. But this could be something that could be very useful to have a standardized level of training depending on what type of police officer that is. And to have more than one person doing a handful of people, it just seems again this would be reducing police hours, this would be reducing violence on the job. This would do so many things. So another economic model to show your intervention with police can result in long-term stability in our communities. The last thing I wanted to ask was in terms of where you see this work going in terms of improvement, in terms of what data was shared with us, how do we track -- and Councilmember Gauthier sort of asked this question as well, how do we follow people past this encounter that you respond in a mobile crisis way so that the long-term health, mental health of whoever you intervene for has a warm handoff? Now, we have the model for people with substance disorder to have a long-term going to a year at the Wellness Center, right. So it would be lovely to see what we do for others who have mental health issues that cause the crisis team to show up in the first place.
Right. We are in the process of creating our follow-up team within PCL. So individuals that are suicidal that call 988, they get a callback -- depending on the level of severity of the information we get, they can get a callback within hours, 72, 8 48, whatever. And that can 9 continue depending on what that 10 person needs. 11 So that gives us a sense 12 for are they following up with the 13 recommendations, the referrals and 14 the community-based services that 15 we're providing. On the mobile 16 team side, after that crisis 17 intervention there is an 18 expectation for that provider, for 19 the team, to provide follow up 20 within 72 hours just to see how 21 Kenny is doing. I set up that 22 appointment for you, are you going 23 to be able to make it, is 24 everything okay, is there anything else we should be thinking about or doing as we're continuing towards this path of recovery. So those are the two follow-up options we have if we were to take it even further. If these individuals have CBH insurance, we can make sure that, yes, they are connected. This person did show up for that appointment, and we can see the trajectory from that call all the way through disposition. It's a little harder for constituents that don't have insurance. But we can still have a way to figure out where they're going in the system, because with CBH, it's a claims, right. So the provider paid for something so we know they went. But I think we have to continue to work on what would that look like for individuals that are not CBH-eligible, but we're also connecting them to those services.
Those are the people who probably need it the most --
-- who do not have insurance coverage of any kind. So this is great that you're already proactive in this space and you're collecting data, because that's when that was what is going to be really useful for us to say that your follow-up services and you compare that to years past and see the difference in what happens to our communities. Again, a great model for us to use in terms of budget allocation. So I would appreciate that kind of feedback and data to tell us how we can advocate for more of this. So thank you so much for all the hard work. Appreciate it.
Councilwoman, to your questions about crisis intervention training, we have a team member here with us from our Behavior Health and Justice Division who can give you some more information about that. Shaakira Gillette, one of our Associate Directors and Behavioral Health and Justice.
Thank you. Please come up and state your name for the record and respond. (Witness approached Witness table.)
Good morning. Shaakira Gillette, from the Department of Behavioral Health. And I just have some information on our CIT-trained officers. The CIT program has actually been absorbed by the Philadelphia Police Department, but the Department of Behavior Health, we used to spearhead this training. The CIT Program initiated in 2007. And since that time, 4,708 Philadelphia Police Department officers were trained in crisis Intervention services. Class 149 was in February of 2025, so this program has been doing phenomenal. It was doing so well that the Philadelphia Police Department decided to absorb the program from us. We still provide behavioral health support, which means we still partner with the program to be a behavioral health expert in the room.
So Member Ahmad's comment about modeling and measuring is critical because if it ain't measured, it ain't managed. And we can't fight for additional funding if we don't know what our rate of return is. So it's kind of hard to figure out -- it's hard when you prevent things because that's what you do often. You prevent arrests, you prevent hospitalizations. But we have to figure out in that modeling how much is that worth to taxpayers. So with that, I recognize Member Harrity.
Thank you, Chairman Jones. Since I'm the only Irish guy here I'll say Happy St. Patrick's Day everybody. Only Curtis Jones could get this Irish guy here on St. Patrick's Day. I don't know if he knows how much of an accomplishment that is. But first real quick, just a real quick one, what's the starting salary for one of your team members?
And what's the starting salary for those two individuals?
The crisis specialist is anywhere between 55 and 59 and the peer specialist is anywhere between 45 and 49. At least that's what we see in the budgets. We don't get to dictate what the providers pay. We just give them a range for what we think is best.
Okay. All right. That's good. That was a nice quick one. What do you think the success rate has been on decreasing police intervention into behavioral health episodes and situations? Are we kind of getting that away more than -- if you guys did say that already, I apologize.
No, I think we are getting away from having the police involved in behavioral health crisis. There's been really minimal -- I want to say and I don't want to lie because -- but the numbers are low and (inaudible). Thank you. So this is what I was looking for. So for example, in 2024 one provider had only three individuals that were detained by police. And again, that's out of thousands -- I mean, hundreds of dispatches. Another provider had just one. We had another provider that had three. So in total, it was about 10. That's really, really low because if you think about not having these teams.
That's just what I was thinking. That was my follow-up.
So I'm just talking about 2024. So the numbers we gave you was like from 2023 up until January of 2025. But for this police involvement in behavioral health crisis that the mobile teams were involved in, we had about 10 in 2024. So the way I see that is if we didn't have these teams, how much higher would those numbers have been. So 10 had to be the situation was so risky, right, that the teams needed to call law enforcement to support their intervention.
Yeah, I think those numbers are really good. All right. Do you believe as this program expands it will help take the burden away from the police department?
All right. So that's the goal. And then how are we advertising the 988 system because I'm a big -- we as a city do a real bad job of telling people about all the great stuff and great services that we can provide. Just curious of how you're getting that information out to the public?
Well, apparently you are because 14,000 people knew to call 988.
Yeah. So since 2022 we received some SAMHSA grant funds just for 988 Education and Awareness Campaign. So we've had PSAs on television. We've had ads on the radio, iHeart Everywhere, KYW. We have had partnerships with our sports teams, go Eagles, where their playbooks we have an ad in there. We have a partnership with the Sixers where they have Mental Health Awareness Night. It's all about 988. We just had one in January, and we have a lot of resources and cards that we give out. We have partnered with the School Districts to create swag for kids. What I would love to do at some point, if not this year, next year, we still have a little bit of SAMHSA money before they take it away, is to work with the School District to see if they're willing to have 988 on the back of ID cards. A lot of states are doing that. So all of the school IDs have 988 on the back of it. I would love to do that. We go -- our Community Wellness and Engagement Units, they go out into the community and give out information. But you're right, we have to do more. We just don't have enough money for it. But with the little we have, we are spreading and stretching the funds.
SEPTA supports us as well. There's 988 signs in all of the SEPTA stations.
I'm a big supporter also. It's always all over my personal and my government site. Mental health, it affects everybody. So we need to get that stigma away, you know, that is very outdated, you know what I mean. The God's honest truth is most people after speaking with a professional usually are okay.
And we need to make sure that they're available more often. The fact of the matter is that we don't have enough of those professionals. There's a crazy statistic that came out a few years back where we have one child psychiatrist for every 10,000 kids in Pennsylvania. Philadelphia, we're a little better in the numbers because we're a big city, but statewide is one per 10,000. That's just crazy. All right. Thank you.
Thank you, Member Harrity. Before we go to Brooks, Rue Landau and then O'Rourke, that's the order. I'm trying to keep track, quick question: Is your funding in jeopardy based on the new federal administration? How does that trickle-down payment should happen?
So based on the federal administration and /sitiation/, is there any jeopardy to your funding or is it directly from the City of Philadelphia?
it is directly from you. Thank you so much. We are so grateful. But I have to be honest with you, a lot of other states are not so lucky. So the federal government through SAMHSA gave some grants for 988 capacity building. So a lot of states are relying just on that money. We have you and we have Health Choices. So the money they're giving us we're just using for 988 awareness. We're trying to spread the word on 988, because that's part of what you're supposed to use it for. So whatever happens with SAMHSA would not impact us. We just will lose the grant that they've given us through 2026. But other cuts will impact I think Medicaid, which impacts our work. That's where the problem lies.
Okay. So thank you guys so much for this amazing work. I have been following not just our own mobile crisis center, but all over the country. I've been to Portland to see the Portland Response Team and a couple of other programs, and I'm always very proud to see that we're holding our own. And your testimony has been really amazing. And it makes me feel good just to hear that things are going as planned. I have kind of two questions. One, to add, Councilmember Gauthier asked for some more specific information about scaling up. Can you make sure we have some budgetary numbers for that? Because I don't know if she specifically asked for how much is it going to cost. I know she asked how many more staff would you need to do this, but we need to know the cost of that.
Especially in light of what Councilmember Jones just asked. We don't know what's going on. With the federal government everything is on the table, that's how I feel. And the rest of the team that my colleagues have asked so many really good questions. So I have one about DBHIDS. They do support work for people in mental health crisis that that are heavily reliant on the trust in the community, community groups, including groups like Treatment, Not Trauma. So they're here today. Where's the Treatment? (Applause.)
And they have been instrumental in setting up lifesaving programs and expanding funding. They are the ones who kind of put the fire against us and gave us the charge to make this happen. So how many meetings with community groups like Treatment like Trauma have you guys held within the last six months? And what groups have you met with?
So we have a Community Advisory Board for Crisis 2.0 evaluation. That's a quarterly meeting, and TNT is part of that. In the beginning when we were starting this Crisis 2.0, we had a learning collaborative that started in 2021, the end of 2021, 2020, it was about months. They 11 were part of that group. But since 12 we went into implementation, it's 13 really been about ensuring we're 14 getting teams out. We're getting 15 the service rolled out. And we 16 have not had specific meetings with 17 Treatment Not Trauma, but I think 18 they're part of a 911 community.
Right. We have a meeting monthly that Treatment Not Trauma attends, a community meeting, in conjunction with public safety.
And we can only take testimony from the table because it has to be transcribed. So if you shout out who you are, your name, maybe that'll get to our -- what's your name? Your name?
Yeah, but -- all right. Okay. We'll continue our testimony this way.
Yes. Councilwoman, first of all, thank you so much for all of your support. We really appreciate how you have advocated for us. But in addition, we have had some meetings with Treatment Not Trauma. Specifically I've met with them with some of my team members. Whenever there's a need or a request for a meeting, we have that. So we've actually met with them twice over the last six months.
Okay. So I would just like you guys to kind of set up something to more -- in our current era that we're in, I know that advocacy and government goes hand-in-hand. And I think as we move forward if you guys can make sure you kind of meet more regularly to make sure that everyone's on the same page with moving forward to ensure that we can continually fund and support the work that you do, because it's like they were the advocates that got this moving. I would love to make sure that things are continually moving smoothly. So if it's quarterly, can we just or -- because I'm not really clear because I think it could be --
There are a couple of different meetings that are happening, yes.
So if we can have something just like more streamlined so it's clear that everyone's voices are being heard, and we can continue to grow this program, and you guys can continue to do the great work. Thank you.
Thank you so much. I agree. Adding my voice to the chorus appreciate your work so much and appreciate the innovative ways in which you've gone forward to solve a very serious problem here in Philadelphia. I have a few questions for you. First, I might be missing something so I want to dig down on something. We've talked a lot about calls that go from 911 to 988 and from 988 to 911. I've gotten an understanding now a bit more about when calls are going to 911 when they're looping you in for 988. I'm not getting a full understanding of when calls come to 988 when are you looping in 911 and under what circumstances. And also, I believe we heard that you've only had 10 police interventions in about a year or so of interacting with including 911 to 988. But again, I want to get a fuller understanding of when you're calling them and when they're coming out?
So in terms of when we at 988 would call for 911, that would be for an active rescue. So what would happen would be the calltaker from 988 would stay on the line with the caller, and we have a teams chat, right, of all the callers who would ask, I need help, I need someone to call 911, this is the situation. So someone else would call 911 and request immediate police support.
So under what circumstances would you do that? What would the caller have to say to you at 988 for you to use your team's chat to have a colleague call 911?
I'm standing on the bridge, I'm going to jump, I'm on the ledge. That kind of rescue.
Yeah. Or someone who had a weapon, I have the weapon and it's at my head. Now, the calltaker would continue to support the caller and try to get them to take the bullets out of the weapon, put the weapon down, you know, that kind of thing. But you'd also need police to be coming to the home for support.
From your data it seems that you get about 6000 calls a month, a lot. Thank you so much for all that you do. Approximately, how many of those or what percentage of those rise to the level of you including 911?
I don't have an exact number. It is not a regular thankfully, not a regular occurrence, not an unknown occurrence.
Yeah. We actually -- so calls received from January to 2023 through January of 2025, for example, these are the calls to 988. It's 147,375. That's the number of the calls in two years and one month. The warm transfers from 988 -- I mean, from 911 to us is 4,146. Now, from us to them, I think we're going to have to --
We do track how many it is to us because we think that's really important that they're not getting in cases that are behavioral health in nature and doesn't need 911 involvement.
Okay. Thank you. I also wanted to ask more about your dashboard. I'm the Chair of the Tech Committee. And so, is there a plan to update the mobile crisis public chat dashboard? It was last updated in May of 2024. And will you include this data that I just asked you about, about the inclusion of 911 and 988?
So the data was taken down from our 988 website from the request of City law because we had monthly data which was violation, so they wanted us to make that annual. That data has been updated. It is now back on the website --
Oh, I'm sorry. I thought I was loud -- oh, big difference. Yes. So the data is back on the website now and it shows annual data. It's no longer by month, and we can definitely ask City law if it's okay for us to share the 911 call transfer data as well.
Okay. Thank you. I think that's it for the moment, and thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Most of the questions really have been asked. Let me just begin by saying good morning, Interim Commissioner Williams and team, and thank y'all for being here with us today. I just want to say that your testimony has been, as Councilman Jones lifted up, so comprehensive and thorough at a time that I think that's so important. We are in the midst of budget season. We've heard a lot about the challenges with our federal situation and your ability to provide us with this sort of information as we listen really prepares us and helps us to know where we need to allocate funds in this time. I really appreciated the reference that you made, especially as we hear echoes of this line about strength or peace through strength or force and things like that, making us stronger kind of being a theme throughout the country and our governance. To hear you say that timely, effective, compassionate care has made our system stronger is something I think ought to be emphasized. The idea that compassion makes us stronger is something that I think it should be emphasized and funded through the roof. So again, thank you for making that point --
-- heard loudly. I also want to acknowledge the work that has been done to get us here on this issue over the last five years, by Members Bass and Driscoll and Gauthier and Thomas and others. And just as importantly, I want to echo the shout-out that was lifted up already and thank the advocates and the groups like Treatment Not Trauma for helping lead us in a better direction in the wake of that unfortunate death in the situation with Walter Wallace. Let me just say I do look forward to hearing even more throughout the course of this hearing today. But I just wanted to ask a quick question about data for certain outcomes. What data do you have for outcomes for CERT dispatches? And how many dispatches, if you have it, are actually resulting in involuntary commitments?
So the CERT data is provided by the police. I'm looking at Kurt August, who is the holder of that data, not sure if maybe I can invite him to speak on that.