OCEAN COUNTY – Few would deny that mental health issues play a role in some of the calls that come into local police departments. Could appropriate intervention make a difference – and even lessen the risk of fatal police shootings in the line of duty?
Stafford Township Police Chief Tom Dellane believes that to be the case. While he says his department trains its officers in de-escalating perilous situations, he is a big proponent of getting help for people showing evidence of mental illness.
“We had a family who had a child on the spectrum,” said Dellane. “As he got older, his body became a man, and his parents had more difficulty constraining him.”
Dellane said his department received numerous calls from the parents for help. As a result, Stafford officers became intimately involved with both the young man and the issues at home.
It all came to a head with one particular call that turned into a crisis situation.
“One morning, the son got into an argument with his mother,” Dellane explained. “He picked up a knife and threatened to harm himself and others. He even left the house with the rather large knife and ran off to an area near a school bus stop.”
Fortunately, the responding officers were familiar with the young man and were able to reason with him. Knowing him also helped those on the scene to find a position of safety for themselves.
“Quite honestly, if they had chosen to shoot that young man,” continued Dellane. “It would have been a perfectly legal shooting.”
Chilling acknowledgment, for sure. Dellane credits his officers for gaining the young man’s confidence in getting him to put down the knife and finding a peaceful resolution to that incident. It represented the first prong of success in saving a life. However, he knew more could be done.
Authorities escorted the troubled young man to a psychiatric hospital several hours away in Pennsylvania. The facility seemed to think three days of treatment was enough to justify his release. As far as Dellane was concerned, they didn’t understand the magnitude of the situation.
“I actually sent two of my officers to meet with the medical staff to impress upon them that they could not let that child go without further treatment,” Dellane said. “Otherwise, he could wind up killing someone or getting himself killed.”
As a result, treating doctors decided to confine the young man to a long-term facility. He started receiving weekend releases and expressed his desire to meet with local police officers. Stafford police made the time to visit as a kind gesture.
The need for mental health intervention isn’t new to the Stafford Police Department. As far back as 2016, Meghan Corrigan, a licensed clinical social worker covering southern Ocean County, acted as a psychiatric emergency screener.
Dellane credited Corrigan for initiating a conversation about a program now known as On P.O.I.N.T. (Proactive Outreach In Needs and Treatment). It now exists in nine communities throughout the state. Except for Bridgewater, which operates its service under a different name, the balance of the departments using On P.O.I.N.T. are all in Ocean County.
“The key to this is providing follow-up,” shared Dellane. “If someone needs to be linked to services, a lot of times we would make the referral. People who are struggling to cope with basic life skills might not have the means to follow up or even make the appointments. Our On P.O.I.N.T. staff actually guides them and provides transportation when necessary.”
According to Dellane, On P.O.I.N.T. has done a wonderful job of getting people the treatment services they need. The result has been a reduction in calls to crisis situations in repeat households.
Corrigan said she noticed the need for a social worker as she first began to screen cases. Not everything she saw seemed to be solely related to criminal activity.
“There were people having familial issues, often out of control kids with behavioral or mental health issues,” she said. “Some were individuals having problems with substance abuse or even medical issues.”
Anyone who has tried to look for help in a crisis might relate to the difficulty in finding appropriate services. Corrigan acknowledged that navigating both the mental health and substance abuse treatment systems can be more than a little bit challenging. Meanwhile, social workers have the tools to evaluate, assess, and connect with appropriate resources.
Police officers are the first responders. While they made initial referrals, Corrigan suggested it was too much to ask law enforcement to follow up to see those in need found the necessary help. After all, most officers were jumping from call to call to call.
Corrigan left her position as a psychiatric health screener to move to Ocean Mental Health Services, now Bright Harbor Health Care. By then, she’d already spoken with Dellane concerning the concept of police social work. Corrigan said it was something she knew was working in other parts of the country.
“Chief Dellane was at a training session with my direct supervisor (at my new employer),” said Corrigan. “He mentioned that I was working there and spoke to her about the idea we had talked about.”
“My director, Kim Veith, and our agency CEO Jim Cooney loved the idea and decided it was something we would do and wanted to know how,” Corrigan continued. “We wound up doing a pilot demonstration in 2016.”
The program took off at that point when Corrigan and a master’s level social work intern from Monmouth University set up shop in Stafford. Two days a week, they sat in the local police department and responded to officer referrals for community members who needed social worker intervention.
On some occasions, local law enforcement officials requested the social workers make home visits. Many people just wanted to communicate by phone and were happy that someone was getting to know them and help them with the situations that led police to call in the first place.
“We collected data and realized that once we became involved, there was a difference,” Corrigan said. “As we looked at a year prior to the program’s start and compared it with how often people were calling the police for certain issues, we showed a reduction in those types of calls.”
When Corrigan and Dellane initially tried to secure grants for the program, they came up empty-handed. Fortunately, things have changed since then. First, Bright Harbor funded the program itself in 2018. Then, a year or two later, the Ocean County Department of Human Services provided Bright Harbor with funding in support of On P.O.I.N.T.
Earlier this year, Congressman Andy Kim (D-3rd) announced he voted on a federal government package that includes $32,000 for Ocean County’s On P.O.I.N.T. community-based policing program that embeds social workers with participating Ocean County police departments to reduce the need for police intervention in mental health and substance abuse cases.
The additional funding has allowed the expansion of the On P.O.I.N.T. program into Barnegat, with seven other Ocean County communities already signed on as participants: Lacey, Lakehurst, Little Egg Harbor, Manchester, Ocean Township, South Toms River, and Stafford.
In thanking Kim for his help in securing funding, Barnegat Police Chief Keith Germain acknowledged that many of the challenges law enforcement and society face together is rooted in the growing need for mental health services.
“On P.O.I.N.T serves as the perfect example of what we can accomplish when we partner the police with mental health professionals in an innovative way,” Germain said. “We see better outcomes, safer interactions, and a more efficient use of available resources.”
While each of the participating police departments has its own internet presence explaining On P.O.I.N.T., you can see an example of the program overview and objectives on the page devoted to Stafford Township Police Department.
