Introduction. Policy Sub-Committee Members

Transcription

1 TO: Bill Denihan and Ed Eckart, Co-Chairs MHRAC and MHRAC Members FROM: Gabriella Celeste and Hollie Gallagher, MHRAC Policy Sub-Committee Co-Chairs DATE: April 22, 2016 RE: Working Draft of Crisis Intervention Policy Recommendations for MHRAC Review & Input Introduction This memorandum serves as our MHRAC Policy Sub-Committee report and first working draft of the Crisis Intervention Policy for collaborative review and revisions, as required per the Consent Decree and MHRAC Work Plan. Co-Chairs Gallagher and Celeste would like to thank each of the Policy Sub- Committee members for their valuable time and input to this process. We are not exaggerating when we say that our committee members, most of whom are community volunteers, contributed countless hours of thoughtful input to this process. They gathered information, critically reviewed documents, drafted language, participated in robust and candid discussion, and negotiated some of the finer points of proposed policy language with remarkable professionalism, compassion and mutual respect. In addition, many of our members assisted Ed Stockhausen in the development of the community survey and volunteered at the community input forums. We truly worked as a collaborative team community members, Cleveland Division of Police (CDP) representatives, Dr. Dupont of the monitoring team and the USDOJ to develop this set of recommendations. We are very grateful for everyone s contribution and are pleased to offer the following report and draft policy recommendations for MHRAC consideration. Policy Sub-Committee Members Gabriella Celeste, Co-Chair, CWRU Schubert Center for Child Studies Hon. Hollie Gallagher, Co-Chair, Justice Center Carole Ballard, ADAMHS Tara Foxworth, Hitchcock Center for Women Rev. Benjamin Gohlston, community member Lori Locke, University Hospital Maria Nemec, Justice Center Meghan Patton, Justice Center Deputy Chief Joellen O Neil, CDP Susan Neth, FrontLine Rick Oliver, FrontLine Rosie Palfy, community member Captain James Purcell, CDP Kathllen Stoll, community member Hon. Joan Synenberg, Justice Center *Dr. Randolph Dupont, Monitor and Heather Tonsing Volosin, USDOJ This report presents the charge of our committee, our guiding principles (approved on 12/3/16) in this effort and the methodology, as well as the first draft of the crisis intervention policy and two additional policy suggestions that came out of the community meetings and did not fit clearly within the existing policy framework. MHRAC Policy Sub-Committee Report & Draft Policy Recommendations

2 Policy Sub-Committee Charge The charge of the Policy Sub-Committee is to serve as a police policy review and recommendation working group of the MHRAC as part of the consent decree implementation process. Primarily, this involves reviewing the existing CDP policies as they relate to handling mentally ill, mentally vulnerable and/or those citizens in crisis in order to make draft recommendations for revising these policies consistent with best practices and guiding principles. Per the Monitoring Plan, this included collecting the concerns, values, and issues related to the CDP s crisis intervention from across Cleveland s diverse communities in order to revise crisis intervention policies. Policy Sub-Committee Guiding Principles Throughout the work of the Policy Sub-Committee, we sought to promote and incorporate these agreed-upon guiding principles: 1. Advance dignity and safety in all interactions between Cleveland police officers (CDP) and citizens. 2. Safely divert, when possible, mentally ill, mentally vulnerable and/or those citizens in crisis from the criminal justice system to appropriate mental health and substance abuse treatment. 3. Reduce unnecessary use of force and injury and advance best practice tactics (i.e. effective deescalation, communication, etc.). 4. Eliminate discrimination and minimize bias and stigma of mentally illness and addiction in police-citizen encounters. 5. Increase CDP s knowledge and understanding of trauma, mental health and substance abuse issues and available community resources. 6. Improve police-community trust and interactions. Methodology The Policy Sub-Committee met in person to conduct its work monthly or more often, in addition to several planning, organizational, review and pre-drafting meetings among the co-chairs. The policy meetings were held on the following dates: 10/29/15 12/3/15 1/14/16 2/4/16 3/3/16 4/7/16 4/15/16 MHRAC Policy Sub-Committee Report & Draft Policy Recommendations

3 In addition, together with the Community Engagement Committee, the Policy co-chairs and several members were part of a joint public meeting planning work group that met several times to develop the community survey and the community input meetings as described below. Several policy sub-committee members also attended each of the three community input meetings to hear community input firsthand. The following outlines the agreed-upon process for gathering information and integrating it into the policy development process. a. Review of current CDP policies/ GPOs related to mental illness and/or those in crisis. Policy sub-committee members received a brief orientation from CDP on the current Handling the Mentally Ill and Crisis policies to gain a basic understanding of procedure, challenges and other issues. b. Gathering community and CDP input: i. Community input on police encounters with persons in crisis was a critical part of the CDP policy development process, as well as part of MHRAC Needs Assessment. A community survey was posted on March 23, 2015 and widely publicized. Community input sessions were scheduled to be held in three different Cleveland neighborhoods and the ADAMHS, FrontLine and the court identified additional opportunities for meetings to be held with a targeted subset of individuals who, when experiencing a crisis, had personal experience with police. The Data Committee prepared a draft report of the community survey findings, which was reviewed by the Policy Sub-Committee and used to inform recommendations to the CDP in its policy revisions. ii. In addition, the Data Committee will be incorporating all of the feedback from the community input sessions and surveys into a Needs Assessment that will be reviewed with an eye toward incorporating any additional recommendations into the revision of the first draft. iii. CDP conducted its own internal survey from officers about their experience handling those in crisis and suggestions for policy and procedure improvements. The findings from this survey, which was completed 168 officers (approximately 10% of the CDP officer workforce), were shared by CDP with the MHRAC and reviewed by the Policy Sub-Committee for consideration in the policy development. c. Model Policy Collection & Review. Policy Sub-Committee members collected and conducted comprehensive reviews of similar crisis policies in other cities, with a focus on cities engaged in reform/ under consent decrees, to identify best and promising policies and practices. In addition to Cleveland, policies were collected from the following 19 jurisdictions: Akron Albemarle Albuquerque Anne Arundel County Austin Cincinnati Charlotte Collier County Columbus Hartford Hillsborough MHRAC Policy Sub-Committee Report & Draft Policy Recommendations

4 Kansas City Memphis Milwaukee New Orleans Portland San Francisco Seattle West Palm Beach d. Agreed upon a common definition for the target crisis population. Based on review of policies in other jurisdictions, community input and guidance from the consent decree, the Policy Sub-Committee members developed a common definition for crisis and individuals in crisis, which informed the remainder of the policy development. e. Policy Drafting. CDP took primary drafting responsibility for the draft policy related to those in crisis with input from the Policy Sub-Committee and the community through an iterative process. The draft policy merges existing CDP policies concerning crisis intervention, handling the mentally ill and other related policies as deemed appropriate. f. Identification of Key Policy Elements. Common core policy elements were identified through the comprehensive review of policies in other jurisdictions and an informal scoring grid was developed for members to mark those policies which they determined best exemplified the desired policy element. Members engaged in rigorous discussion to reach consensus on the importance of key elements in a crisis policy, which were identified as the following: i. Communications & Dispatch (CIT & non-cit) ii. Guidance for Recognizing Persons in Crisis iii. De-escalation Guidance iv. CIT Crisis Intervention Procedures v. Children & Youth-Specific Guidance vi. Custody & Arrest vii. Diversion viii. Transportation ix. Data Collection g. Drafting Suggested Policy Language. Based upon the policy elements identified in i-ix, in addition to an additional item concerning the use of Naloxone, members volunteered to work together in teams to draft policy language for each of the policy elements to be incorporated into the Procedures of the draft policy. Those draft policy rationale and language memos were compiled into a comprehensive document shared with the Policy Sub-Committee (and copied to the monitoring team, USDOJ, and Mr. Denihan and Mr. Eckart) for review and discussion. h. Discussion of Policy Suggestions & Revisions to Working Draft Policy. The Policy Sub- Committee held a half day working session to review and discuss every draft policy language submission and CDP incorporated significant portions of those recommendations into a revised Working Draft of the policy. The Policy Sub-Committee then met again to review the revised Working Draft and make additional changes and suggestions, based on the review of community and CDP input, as well as committee members. CDP has continued to receive input and suggestions after the last in-person meeting, including written suggestions submitted by Dr. MHRAC Policy Sub-Committee Report & Draft Policy Recommendations

5 Dupont on 4/20/16 see attached addendum. Some of these suggestions are reflected in the attached Working Draft Policy but CDP and the Policy Sub-Committee intend to continue to incorporate these suggestions in the working draft as well prior to its formal submission as a First Draft on April 29, i. Identification of additional policy recommendations (Naloxone and CIT). Several items that were identified and reinforced throughout the community input sessions and were not already incorporated into the draft policy, were discussed by the Policy Sub-Committee. It was agreed that two specific recommendations concerning Naloxone and the visual insignia for CIT officers would be included in a separate set of recommendations for consideration, given they required separate approval. See attachment for memo and suggested policy language on Naloxone for further consideration. j. Presentation of Working Draft Policy to MHRAC by April 22 for review and comment with revisions to be incorporated into final submission of First Draft of Crisis Intervention Policy on April 29, See attachment for First Working Draft of crisis intervention policy. Next Steps The MHRAC Policy Sub-Committee recognizes that this is the first, but essential step in the process of developing the CDP crisis intervention policy and welcomes feedback and input, including from the MHRAC, the monitoring team and community members. We value the level of engagement by the greater Cleveland community in this process, as well as the individual commitment by the members of the Policy Sub-Committee. We would like to specifically commend the representatives of the CDP, Deputy Chief O Neil and Captain Purcell, who worked in authentic partnership with the other members of the Sub-Committee, striving for the development of a crisis intervention policy that both met the needs of the CDP and reflected best practice and the values of the community. We look forward to next steps to ensure the final product achieves the larger goal of treating all people in crisis with dignity while maintaining safety and public trust. Thank you for the opportunity to be a part of this important work. Attachments 1. Working Draft Crisis Intervention Policy 2. Memo and Suggested Policy Language concerning Naloxone 3. Dr. Randolph Dupont s submitted suggestions for draft policy MHRAC Policy Sub-Committee Report & Draft Policy Recommendations