'Austin FIRST' pilot program to send mental health experts to crises

Mental health experts to be sent to crises in Austin

The City of Austin is starting a pilot program to help respond during mental health crises.

AUSTIN, Texas - The City of Austin is starting a pilot program to help respond during mental health crises.

The "Austin FIRST" pilot program is set to last six months. After that, they will evaluate what went well and what needs to change.

What is Austin FIRST?

The backstory:

It is going to be the first of its kind. A group of three people from the Austin Police Department, Integral Care, and Austin-Travis County EMS will all respond together to high acuity or what could be dangerous mental health calls.

"There are plenty of jurisdictions around the U.S. that have co-response, but they don’t respond to these kinds of incidents because they’re high acuity," City of Austin Chief Medical Officer Dr. Mark Escott said.

The city said this response is needed, and they want to try it out.

"This team is designed to respond to those where there is concern for violence or there’s active agitation that indicates a significant risk for harm or escalation," Dr. Escott said. "Our goal here is to develop a plan and deploy a team to minimize those adverse events across our community."

By the numbers:

In 2019, clinicians were added to the 911 call center to help those experiencing a mental health crisis on the phone. Statistics show their intervention has helped decrease arrests and emergency detentions.

Impact of adding call center clinicians from January 2019 to February 2025:

• Arrests decreased from 37–58%.
• Average on-scene time is down 51–66%.
• Emergency detentions are down 44–62%.

Dig deeper:

However, officials have noted more work needs to be done when responding to these types of calls out in the field.

Starting later this month, the "Austin FIRST" pilot program will begin with a three-person crew from Monday-Thursday from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. in downtown Austin. They will respond to active 911 calls and also monitor the area for people in need.

"How can we reach out and see what needs to be done for this person, not waiting for a call to come in, not waiting for them to be lying on the street? How can we do that?" Austin Police Chief Lisa Davis said.

"Part of the beauty of our partnership with Integral Care is it allows us the robust ability to do the follow-up to ensure that we are tracking the individuals that we encounter and that we’re intervening and preventing the revolving door we’ve seen year after year in terms of mental health crisis," Dr. Escott said.