Fulton County - Connect and Protect

The Fulton County Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Disabilities, in partnership with the Fulton County Sheriff’s Office, proposes this Priority 1A co-responder program (CoRe) to serve adults in Fulton County, Georgia experiencing behavioral health crises with a focus on individuals with mental health disorders or co-occurring mental health and substance use disorders. Fulton County is the most populous of the state’s 159 counties with 1,079,105 citizens, including areas with deep ties to discriminatory redlining and historical marginalization.
The CoRe team will include a behavioral health clinician and a sheriff’s deputy who will respond to 911 and 988 behavioral health crises using culturally competent and trauma-informed crisis de-escalation techniques. Within 24 hours of crisis stabilization, a peer support specialist will follow-up with each individual and provide warm handoffs to community-based supports and resources for wraparound services. The CoRe program will reduce crisis response times by 30%, provide training to at least 50 Fulton County first responders, and conduct outreach to at least 1,000 Fulton County residents through engaging in community-based educational events. Formal program evaluation will be conducted by the Atlanta-based research and evaluation firm, Applied Research Services. There are no planned conference activities for the recommended award.