New Report Evaluating Orange County’s Crisis Assistance, Response, & Engagement (CARE) Team

In May 2024, Orange County and the Chapel Hill Police Department launched the Crisis Assistance, Response, and Engagement (CARE) Team. The CARE Team is an all-civilian mobile crisis response team comprised of a mental health counselor, an emergency medical technician (EMT), and a peer support specialist. The Team also has a call diversion component, where a mental health counselor based in the 911 call center assists individuals in crisis over the phone while they wait for an in-person response, or, when appropriate, provides support that avoids an in-person response altogether. Through both components, the CARE Team provides a holistic response to 911 calls related to mental health concerns, substance use, intellectual and developmental disability, and low-level criminal offenses that are non-emergent. In December, the School’s Criminal Justice Innovation Lab published a report evaluating the first thirteen months of CARE Team operations as part of an ongoing partnership with Orange County. This post explains the CARE Team model and summarizes some of the key findings from that report. About the CARE Team Model Alternative crisis response programs take many forms across North Carolina. Some readers may be familiar with the Lab’s other work on alternative responder programs, including a recent evaluation of Burlington’s co-responder model. Unlike a co-response model, where a behavioral health clinician responds to calls for service alongside law enforcement, the CARE Team responds to certain 911 calls instead of the police. The CARE Team is only dispatched to specific call types that stakeholders carefully selected and programmed directly into [...]