JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Since 2020, the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office has been responding to mental health crises across the city through its “Co-Responders” program.
The purpose of the “Co-Responders” is to ease the tensions between the individual and the responding officers. Officers are partnered with a licensed mental health professional who can assist officers in de-escalating a situation.
The program has grown significantly over the years. Now, each of the six districts has a team of two officers and a clinician.
Officer Tramell Williams is one of the 12 officers in the program. He’s in District 2.
Brie Roberts, who is a clinician for District 4, said the experience has been eye-opening and rewarding.
“We work as a team really well,” Roberts said. “So it’s cool to see this, at like, the police side of things, as well as the mental health side.”
Calls can come into dispatch or clinicians can self-dispatch onto them and go provide crisis intervention
Take a look at the JSO bodycam footage of an officer responding with Roberts as they worked to de-escalate a situation.
“We do our due diligence to look into the background of the individual that we’re going to see, just to kind of evaluate what we’re walking into,” Williams said.
They make sure the scene is safe before bringing the clinicians on to provide services.
Both Roberts and Williams said that the more information you provide on the call, the clearer and safer the course of action is.
While the program is available Monday through Friday during normal work hours, Roberts said no day is the same.
To date, MHRC said they’ve diverted 260 people from Baker Acts and had about 1,400 contacts since July 2024.
Both officers and clinicians have seen an overwhelmingly positive response to the program.
“Once they see, hey we have a clinician with us, a civilian with us. That’s not a uniform. It’s an instant change in their demeanor and they open up to the clinician. They devote more information than they’re less likely to give us. I think it just helps the overall process,” Williams said.
Roberts said it tends to de-escalate the situation.
“A lot of people want to know who I am, and so once I explain that, they’re likely to open up about what’s going on,” Roberts said.
Questions about how JSO responds to mental health crises have recently re-emerged following an officer-involved shooting involving a man who was dealing with a
According to JSO, the program helps individuals receive the help they need and keeps them out of jail.
