Hoping for the Best

When I left off last week, I mentioned that the social work manager from Travis’s doctor’s office put a couple of items on my to-do list. One was to get the Vitals app put on Travis’s phone. Which I plan to do, once I can wrestle his brand-new phone out of his hands. I wrote about the Vitals app a few weeks ago in my blog, “No End in Sight”.

I was unable to add the app when I first learned about it because Travis’s old phone had no memory left. He couldn’t even take a picture. And his phone had 256 GB of memory. Time to get him a new phone. Did you know that you can now buy a phone with 1T of memory? Purchasing a new phone should be easy. We shop at Victra. They service Verizon but are way less crowded. You don’t have to sign in and wait your turn.

Turns out they don’t keep the Iphone 13 Pro Max with 1T of memory in stock. Why would they? Who, other than Travis, would need such a phone?

I don’t want to talk about how much this phone cost. Rest assured I added insurance to his line! Travis uses his phone like the rest of us use our computers. Plus some. One of his favorite things to do is make videos. If you are his friend on Facebook you may have seen some of his work.

Travis likes to keep his old phones. Not this time. The current Verizon special offered us a $700 trade in for it. We went back to Victra once the phone arrived. They tried to help Travis move his data to the new phone, but he couldn’t remember his Apple ID. Which normally wouldn’t be a problem, you can just press on “Forgot Password” and reset it. Only Travis does this a lot. So much so that Apple wouldn’t allow him to reset it. Apparently for his protection. There must be some sort of algorithm that deems this may be someone other than you trying to change the password.

They sent an email saying they would look at his account and get back to him in 24 hours. We left the store with both phones. The next day Apple sent another email saying that he could reset his password in 14 days. What? I needed to get the old phone back to Victra while the $700 trade-in was still in effect.

We called Apple support. They were unable to override the hold. Deep sigh. I got the “nothing is ever easy” thought. Apple support told us that we could go ahead and turn in the old phone, that his data could be transferred from iCloud. There was no way Travis was going to hand over his old phone until he could see all of his data on his new phone. I’m with him on that one. That would take more faith in the system than either one of us had.

Over the next couple of days Travis kept trying to get in his Apple account using different variations of what he thought was his password. Apple relented and let him change his password. Ha, ha, he has a way of wearing one down! He typed in a new password and his Apple account wouldn’t let him use that password.

I had to laugh, because I think it may have been because that was his last password! That he finally remembered. Anyway, he took his phone back to Victra and they helped him move his data over.

Thankfully I asked him what his new password was and wrote it down. Because literally the next day he was trying to get in and couldn’t remember his new one. You can’t make this stuff up!

Long story short, I will get the Vitals app added to his phone. So that if he needs support while he is in town from the police department, they will have access to some information about him. Like he is suicidal and has mentioned suicide by cop. That he is autistic and may behave differently than expected. That he is unable to follow directions during a meltdown.

I also mentioned in my blog, “No End in Sight”, that I needed to do some research because I didn’t know if the (LCSO) Larimer County Sheriff’s Office used co-responders on their calls. Travis lives outside of city limits. LCSO would be the responding agency if Travis needed support at home.

The universe responded. Just days after writing that blog, I received the Spring 2022 edition of our local Health District newsletter. The cover story is titled, “Mental health co-responders: Answering the call with compassion”, written by Julie Estlick.

The article begins by describing a situation that could have led to violence and injuries, and instead ended in everyone leaving the scene safely. Per Estlick, “That is one of the main goals of the Fort Collins Police Services Mental Health Response Team (MHRT), which matches UCHealth crisis-trained clinicians with police officers to answer emergency and non-emergency calls where someone may be suicidal, behaving erratically, or a victim in need of support. They are often on the scene of domestic violence, harassment due to paranoia or delusions, substance use, a disturbed youth, or a person struggling with homelessness.”

In her article, Estlick quotes Stephanie Booco, a licensed mental health and addiction counselor. Booco is the program supervisor for the UCHealth Co-responder program. Booco says, “Police interact with people in our community who have extreme needs. In the co-responder model, clinicians work in tandem with officers to de-escalate situations and calm people down. In fact, 95 percent of our calls are stabilized in place—no transport to jail or the hospital for psychiatric care is needed.”

Per the article, the goals of a co-responder program are to:

• Increase on-scene safety for all involved.

• Route citizens to the most appropriate level of care/connect to resources.

• Avoid unnecessary referrals to hospital emergency rooms.

• Reduce incarceration-related crimes secondary to mental illness.

• Provide follow-up care coordination to ensure access to care.

• Create a culture of police-mental health collaboration focusing on community need.

Per Estlick, “The mental health co-responder model is being adopted in many communities in northern Colorado—and across the country—to address a growing mental health crisis amplified by the COVID-19 pandemic and a lack of adequate mental health and substance use resources. In 2020, the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) reported 1 in 5 U.S. adults has mental health concerns, and 1 in 20 has a serious mental health disorder.

The need for the service has been so great that the team needed to grow. “When we began this program, we learned that there is no way that the MHRT can respond to every mental health-related call, there are simply too many,” says Fort Collins Police Officer Annie Hill, a team member who is also a psychotherapist and certified addiction counselor.

Last year, two Fort Collins co-responder units answered 1,892 calls for service. A third officer and clinician were added this year, and there are currently openings for a fourth unit so that the Mental Health Response Team can be available 7:30 a.m. to midnight, 7 days a week. Officers are carefully selected and receive extensive training before joining the unit.

Funding for the MHRT is split between the police department, which covers the cost of all equipment and patrol cars, and UCHealth, which employs the clinicians.”

I have highlighted in previous blogs that Fort Collins Police Department (FCPD) had a co-responder program in place, but I wasn’t sure if the LCSO did. Estlick’s article answered my question.

“Mental health crisis intervention is becoming a priority in northern Colorado. In addition to the MHRT, SummitStone Health Partners’ Co-Responder Program partners with the Larimer County Sheriff’s Office, and the Loveland and Estes Park police departments to provide clinicians that assist on behavioral health calls.

The sheriff’s department program is made up of three clinicians, two deputies, and a supervisor. Units respond to calls throughout the county including in Red Feather Lakes, Poudre Canyon, Rist Canyon, and unincorporated areas. Between December 2021 and January 2022 they handled 185 of the 299 mental health-related calls that dispatch received, not counting welfare checks.

Sergeant Robert Cook, who supervises co-responders for the sheriff’s office, has seen the difference that understanding, and a little compassion, can make when a person’s mental state is impacting their actions.

“There are so many success stories about people we have assisted who, once connected to the necessary resources, stabilize and can not only function as a member of society again, but also begin to thrive.”

Travis’s current psychiatrist is part of SummitStone. I didn’t know a thing about Summitstone being partners with LCSO in their co-responder program. I find this frustrating because I attend Travis’s quarterly med management appointments with him, and have expressed my concerns. I have reached out to this doctor specifically asking for help. Instead of dialing 911. Because of my fear of what might happen.

When the social worker called she affirmed that LCSO has a co-responder program. She said if I need to call 911 in the future, ask for the co-responder unit.

The second thing she put on my to-do list? Call the LCSO and ask to speak to a co-responder. Tell them Travis’s story now, while we are not in the middle of a crisis. Our hope is that with Travis currently stable we will never need to call 911 and ask for the co-responder unit. But it is a good idea that while hoping for the best we also plan for the worst.

I pulled up the LCSO website, to get the number to call. Per their website at this link, Mental Health Co-Responder Unit | Larimer County, “The LCSO Mental Health Co-Responder Unit is a unit within the Patrol Section of the Operations Division. The unit was formed in response to the need for a more effective response to the increasing number of mental health-related calls for service both repetitive as well as emergency or urgent calls for service.

Following the “co-responder” model established in larger cities and counties across the nation, LCSO sought and established a cooperative relationship with Summitstone Health Partners. With this partnership, the idea of utilizing Summitstone certified and licensed mental health counselors and pairing them with patrol deputies to respond directly to calls for service in the field came to fruition in early 2019. 

Since then, the unit has expanded to include two co-responder teams (Patrol Deputy and Mental Health Counselor).  The LCSO Co-Responder Unit follows the “primary response” model of co-response, wherein the co-responder team responds to both emergency calls, such as suicide threats or suicide attempts, as well as non-emergency mental health related calls such as conducting welfare checks, dealing with homeless persons with mental illness or addiction issues, assisting people in emotional crisis, and connecting service providers with citizens in need. 

This partnership has been extremely successful in saving a significant amount of time for the patrol deputies and connecting citizens with services they need. Both deputies and the mental health counselors who serve on the Co-responder Unit are specifically selected for their knowledge, skills, and abilities in effective communication,  active listening, de-escalation, as well as their desire to serve and make a positive difference in the lives of those experiencing mental health illness or an acute mental health or emotional crisis.”

I found the number and left a message.

“Hoping for the best, prepared for the worst, and unsurprised by anything in between.” - Maya Angelou

“Out of the mountain of despair, a stone of hope.” - Martin Luther King, Jr.