Tagging Along With Seattle's CARE Team

Reporter Nimra Ahmad describes a day on the job with the city's experimental mental health crisis program staff.

Seattle is now dispatching mental health crisis responders on 911 calls – and reporter Nimra Ahmad got to watch them work in real time. 

In October, the city soft-launched the Community Assisted Response and Engagement (CARE) team, made up of crisis responders who are dispatched with police as needed. This dual dispatch pilot program is one of the many ways cities are reframing the role that police play when it comes to mental health crisis response.  

To get a better idea of what this alternative response system looks like in practice, Nimra went on a few ride-alongs with CARE team members at the end of last year. 

In this episode of Crosscut Reports, host Maleeha Syed chats with Nimra about her reporting on the program, including her firsthand experiences watching the CARE team respond to people in crisis. 

Read more about this new dual dispatch pilot program here. 

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Credits

Host/Producer: Maleeha Syed and Sara Bernard

Reporter: Nimra Ahmad

Story editor: Ryan Famuliner

Executive producer: Sarah Menzies

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