The county also oversees a variety of social services departments and closely partners with St. The county manages the Emergency Communications Center, which answers about 1 million calls a year - the largest volume in the state - for all of its cities, including St. In many ways, Ramsey County is in a unique position to lead this transformation. So far, the county has not released any budget estimates. "This has the potential for being a model statewide." Gathering community inputĬounty officials wanted to bring community members and other stakeholders into the process early, Williams said, with the goal of launching some of the new responders by the end of 2022. "It's exciting that we can implement real changes to how we respond to crisis calls," said Commissioner Trista MatasCastillo. The Ramsey County Board gave staff permission this month to start preparing for the expanded 911 response model, with plans to use federal COVID-19 dollars to seed the project. "We will not send a social worker to a bank robbery," he said. The new model is not about pulling resources from traditional first responders Williams said they will remain the "bedrock" of 911 response. Williams said he anticipates social workers will even work side-by-side with 911 operators, helping them gather information and make quick decisions about whom to send. The expanded emergency response model could change everything from the questions 911 operators ask callers to the mix of responders who show up at the scene. By deploying non-law enforcement resources when a 911 call comes in, Ramsey County will be on the cutting edge. In Hennepin County, the Community Outreach for Psychiatric Emergencies (COPE) program responds 24 hours a day to people experiencing mental health emergencies, but callers need to dial the program directly. In Minnesota, many police departments are already working with co-responders, but usually only after an emergency call comes in. "We are looking at a more enhanced response model where social services, public health and even community resource staff are going out with law enforcement, going out with fire," said Williams, who said it will build on its existing mental health crisis response.Ĭommunities across the county, including Denver, Los Angeles and San Antonio, are exploring similar models that dispatch social workers alongside or instead of police. When a 911 call comes in, civilian co-responders could immediately be dispatched alongside traditional first responders, or even instead of them in some cases. Ramsey County 911 operators could soon dispatch social and mental health workers, child welfare staff and even nonprofit employees to crisis calls, in one of the most dramatic transformations of the emergency call system since its inception half a century ago.Īt a time when communities across the country are rethinking traditional models of policing, Minnesota's second-largest county is trying a fresh approach in which teams of responders, including law enforcement, are trained to help people in crisis, said Scott Williams, Ramsey County's deputy county manager of safety and justice.