{"id":818,"date":"2022-02-22T13:16:33","date_gmt":"2022-02-22T13:16:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ncssinc.org\/news\/?p=818"},"modified":"2022-03-02T16:40:14","modified_gmt":"2022-03-02T16:40:14","slug":"st-albans-voters-asked-to-fund-2nd-police-crisis-worker","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ncssinc.org\/news\/st-albans-voters-asked-to-fund-2nd-police-crisis-worker\/","title":{"rendered":"St. Albans voters asked to fund 2nd police crisis worker"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Voters will be asked to approve and fund a second position.  This is a result of the embedded NCSS mental health clinician in the St. Albans Police Department (SAPD).<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Statements about and quotes from Sam Weber appear throughout the article.<\/em>  The SAPD and NCSS community partnership working towards positive outcomes.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Excerpts from article:<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

St. Albans Police Chief Maurice Lamothe recalled a challenging situation last year when his officers were called to help a local rescue service bring a person to the hospital: The person was experiencing a mental health emergency and didn\u2019t want to get into the ambulance \u2014 in part because uniformed officials were there and asking him to.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That changed after Sam Weber showed up. The Northwestern Counseling and Support Services clinician, who has been embedded in the police department since last January, spoke with the patient and helped calm him down, Lamothe said. After about half an hour, he got into the ambulance without being touched by a first responder.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The rescue service called Lamothe afterward, he said, and told him: \u201c\u2018Hey, just want you to know there was no way this was happening if she wasn\u2019t there.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Weber responds to 10 to 20 calls a week alongside St. Albans police officers, she said, many of which are mental health emergencies or domestic situations. She does not wear a police uniform, though she dons a bulletproof vest under her clothes for safety.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

City officials and residents who advise the city\u2019s police department say Weber\u2019s position has been a success, and now they want a second person to take on the work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Weber works from roughly 7 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday to Thursday. Lamothe said ideally her new colleague would work a non-overlapping shift in order to give the department as much access to their services as possible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One benefit of having a Northwestern Counseling and Support Services clinician on scene is that people can get directly connected to the mental health care they need, the chief said. Weber also has helped give some people enough support, Lamothe said, that they don\u2019t feel a need to call the police as often.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the days Weber doesn\u2019t work, she said officers still refer people to her, and she follows up with them when she\u2019s back. But she said it\u2019s far more effective to get people connected to resources when they need help most \u2014 often, when they call 911.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBy the time I might be calling them on a Monday morning about something that happened the previous week, a lot of times they\u2019re less likely to respond or to take me up on any offers of any sort of assistance,\u201d Weber said. Read more\u2026<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Link to entire article:https:\/\/vtdigger.org\/2022\/02\/18\/st-albans-voters-asked-to-fund-2nd-police-crisis-worker\/?utm_source=VTDigger+Subscribers+and+Donors&utm_campaign=25d36d03ba-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2022_02_19_02_46&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_dc3c5486db-25d36d03ba-405546437<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Voters will be asked to approve and fund a second position.  This is a result of the embedded NCSS mental health clinician in the St. Albans Police Department (SAPD). Statements about and quotes from Sam Weber appear throughout the article.  The SAPD and NCSS community partnership working towards positive outcomes.   Excerpts from article: St. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":819,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ncssinc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/818"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ncssinc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ncssinc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ncssinc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ncssinc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=818"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.ncssinc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/818\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":836,"href":"https:\/\/www.ncssinc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/818\/revisions\/836"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ncssinc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/819"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ncssinc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=818"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ncssinc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=818"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ncssinc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=818"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}