By Pamela Cruz. Peninsula 360 Press [P360P] / Bay City News
Behavioral health professionals accompany law enforcement in certain emergency responses in the four largest cities in San Mateo County
Starting next week, a pilot program will be established that seeks to prevent people experiencing a mental health crisis from ending up in jail or emergency rooms.
The two-acre program launches Monday in Daly City, Redwood City, San Mateo and South San Francisco after the county Board of Supervisors and city councils in all four cities approved it earlier this year to ensure that unsafe situations can be resolved and that people in crisis, as well as first responders, can remain safe.
StarVista, a San Carlos-based nonprofit, hired the county to train and supervise the musicians who will work with the police departments in the four cities.
In offices, doctors will be deployed alongside police officers in cases of mental or behavioral health crises.
The San Mateo County program is one of many developing in the Bay Area and around the nation as jurisdictions try to prevent violent interactions between law enforcement and people in crisis.