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County's crisis intervention mobile unit ready to roll but goal is to prevent need

JANESVILLE — It's a good, safe day when a firefighter doesn't have to respond to a fire.

It's the same for Rock County Crisis Intervention's mobile unit, a program reinstituted in recent months.

While crisis intervention will respond to mental health emergencies at people's homes or at the hospital, the goal is to prevent emergencies in the first place.

Every day, crisis workers in Rock and Walworth counties work to prevent emergencies by delivering medications and helping clients stay on top of their day-to-day health. Mobile units also drive clients to doctors appointments.

When emergencies do happen, crisis workers in both counties can respond on the scene alongside police.

In Walworth County, workers have been doing so since the county's crisis intervention was founded in 2007, crisis intervention Supervisor Liza Spoffrod said.

Years ago, Rock County crisis workers did the same thing. But the practice went by the wayside, and until recently Rock County Crisis Intervention supported police by phone. After trips to the emergency room, police often drove clients to the crisis intervention center in the county complex on Janesville's north side.

For the last three months, the county is taking a more assertive approach, Rock County Crisis Intervention Supervisor Brad Munger said. Whenever possible and appropriate, crisis workers are responding on scene with police officers and other emergency workers, Munger said.

On the scene

After months of stress and failing attempts to keep her family together, a young woman gives up and threatens to kill herself.

Frightened, someone else in the house calls 911.

When the police arrive, they have to assess the situation.

Could the young woman hurt herself or someone around her?

Is she drunk? High? Has a mental illness taken its toll on her safety?

The kind of treatment the woman needs depends on the answers to such questions.

Sometimes the answers are obvious, said Sgt. Rick Larson with the Janesville Police Department.

But the situation often falls into one of many gray areas, Larson said.

"Maybe it's not a definite mental health issue where you know they need to be taken into (protective) custody, but it's obvious we need to take this person into treatment," Larson said.

Police officers are not health care professionals, so it's nice to get help from crisis workers, Larson said.

When police get to the scene of the crisis, they can call Rock County Crisis Intervention for help.

In the past, crisis workers would start making phone calls to find openings in case the person in crisis needed to be checked into treatment.

Now, with the more "assertive" approach in mind, a crisis worker could jump into a car and respond to the scene.

Not every police department in Rock County is taking advantage of the service, Munger said. And crisis intervention can't respond to every call, Munger said.

Munger compared crisis intervention to a small-town fire department. In a big city, when firefighters from two stations are out battling a fire, firefighters still could be waiting at a third station to take calls.

But crisis intervention doesn't have a "station" for back up, Munger said. If workers are busy on one call, they might not be able to respond to a second, he said.

Resources are tight, but getting a crisis worker to the scene is good for everyone, Munger said. You just can't find a substitute for the first-hand knowledge the mental health professionals can gather from an emergency scene, he said.

Just by looking around, mental health workers might bee able to tell if the other people in the household are a help or hindrance to the mental health of the person in crisis. Workers could see if the person in crisis has anyone to turn to for help. Sometimes, loving family members don't make themselves known, Munger said.

"Like that quiet uncle in the corner of the room," Munger said. "Sometimes you might not even know someone exists, but you can empower that person to help their loved one."

And it's not always people crisis workers are looking for. Sometimes the problem is the crack pipe on the table or the bong in the corner, Munger said.

"Those things are not always communicated to us when that person is taken to the emergency room," Munger said.

And observing someone during his or her crisis can be a big clue to the cause, he said.

Two or three hours in the emergency room could greatly increase or decrease a person's stress level, skewing the picture for a crisis worker trying to make an assessment, Munger said.

"Their agitation could have gotten much less or just escalated to greater heights," Munger said. "Many people who have paranoia are afraid of the police."

Preventing crisis

In Rock and Walworth counties, the mobile crisis units work hard every day to give clients the support they need to stay out of crisis.

Crisis workers deliver medications and make sure clients are taking their meds, Munger said. The unit can—and very often does—provide transportation to doctor appointments.

Mobile crisis can deliver food and help with some basic errands to make sure a person can stay on top of their daily needs and responsibilities.

Keeping a person connected with his or her medicine, doctors and basic needs can prevent him or her from spiraling out of control, Munger said.

"We try to be available to the person who would otherwise end up on a police detention," Munger said. "We try to alleviate the person tumbling down hill and ending up in emergency room."