week 8

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Stage 3: Designing the Program – MHCRT Program

Travis Mccalman

Columbia College

Professor Ziegle

MSCJ 524 – CJ Policy Development and Evaluation

3/30/26

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Intervention Approach

The intervention strategy that has been chosen to resolve the issue of mental health crisis in

the criminal justice system is the program-based model, namely, the Mental Health Crisis

Response Team (MHCRT). The given approach is based on the information obtained during the

prior stages such as determining the problem, its causes, and the necessity to respond to the

problem in a coordinated and treatment-focused manner (Jr., 2019). The statistics reported that

most of the law enforcement reactions bested through the traditional form of arrest and

imprisonment do not help deal with the roots of mental health-related actions but leads to recurrent

system use.

An approach based on program is the most appropriate one as the problem needs a direct,

service-oriented intervention at the crisis point instead of developing the general rules or guidelines

(Welsh & Harris, 2016). The MHCRT program offers on-site services, which are very immediate

and through cooperation between law enforcement officers and mental health professionals. As an

example, whenever police encounter a person in a psychiatric crisis, he/she would avoid arresting

him/her but diverting him to the MHCRT team who help him/her calm down and refer him/her to

the care (Theuer et al., 2026). This demonstrates the direct translation of the program of diversion

and use of force as well as improved access to treatment into actionable services.

Target Population

MHCRT program is aimed at serving the mentally in crisis individuals that are in contact

with the law enforcement in the target jurisdiction (Theuer et al., 2026). Such individuals usually

manifest themselves with mental illnesses, emotional distress or drug abuse tendencies and they

can be arrested unnecessarily because they are not being attended to properly. The target group of

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the program comprises mainly of the adults who have non-violent incidents and can be served

better by a treatment-based response than a punitive one.

As an example, a person who displays maniacal behavior in a social place owing to

untreated schizophrenia would be under the target population. The MHCRT team would intervene

rather than arrest someone due to disorderly behavior and examine the mental condition of the

individual and introduce him or her to care. Along with people who are in crisis, the program,

indirectly, also targets the frontline police officers who can be better prepared with the required

training and skills to handle such situations (Welsh & Harris, 2016). Such dual focus guarantees

immediate and systemic levels of crisis response improvements.

Client Selection and Intake Procedures

The entry and movement of people under the MHCRT program follows a number of steps,

which are coordinated, such as access and referral. The program is introduced to most of the

participants in emergency calls to dispatch services. The dispatchers who have been trained to

identify common mental health crisis signs are instrumental in the identification of desirable cases

and the process of allocating MHCRT units. Referrals can also be made by the hospitals,

community organizations or officers that already are present on the scene and notice that

specialized intervention is necessary.

After call is identified to be a good fit to MHCRT, a screening process is carried out. This

includes determining the situation by the criteria of a mental health crisis and determining whether

the situation is safely amenable to a co-response model (Theuer et al., 2026). As an illustration,

when a troubled person endangering self-harm, yet putting no other people at risk, a scenario would

be considered appropriate to use MHCRT intervention. However, the extreme violence situations

might need the use of conventional enforcement by the law.

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The responding officer and the mental health clinician reach decisions relating to the

selection. They possess the best knowledge thus making sure that people are headed in the right

direction. When a person is engaged, an intake process is undertaken whereby the necessary details

are recorded, including its background, demographic information of the individual, nature of the

crisis, and how the individual was referred. This data is tabulated in a system that is supportive of

immediate intervention and even the long run tracking.

During the interaction of the person with the program, a system is operated in which records

are stored in a secure system (Welsh & Harris, 2016). These are documents that contain

information on crisis, services offered, referral made and follow-up outcomes. As an illustration,

whenever such person is referred to a local mental health clinic, the program could keep a track of

whether the person went to the appointment and was able to obtain the service.

Follow-up contacts and further assistance help in retaining the program. Whereas some of

them might get only one intervention, others might be enhanced with continuous interaction. As an

example, an individual who came to outpatient therapy could be given follow up calls or visits to

guarantee continuity of care. These are the procedures that assist in avoiding relapse and

minimizing the repeated contact with the criminal justice system.

Program Components

MHCRT program is made up of well stipulated components that outline the services to be

offered, manner in which they would be offered, extent to which exposure levels would be acquired

to the services and the anticipated results. The essence of the provided services is crisis de-

escalation, on-call mental health assessment, immediate stabilization and referral to the suitable

treatment providers. These services are meant to deal with the issue in the present as well as mental

health requirements of the victim.

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The co-response teams are implemented as a trained police officer along with a licensed

mental health clinician to provide services. Such teams are based in the community and act in

response to crisis when it arises. For instance, the officer would also take precautions when

attending to a call that requires the attention of a person who is in great emotional pain whereas the

clinician would carry out an assessment and provide necessary intervention action.

Dose concept is observed as the frequency and intensity of the services. In most instances,

the first crisis response can take an hour or less than an hour particularly in situations complex in

nature. The follow-up services can be in the form of single or repeated contact within a few days or

weeks. As an example, a person who has been referred to treatment can be given regular check-ins

to check compliance and progress.

There is a sequence of program activities which are based on structured process. It starts

with the emergency call being received in which a screening of dispatching and assigning a

MHCRT unit takes place (Liu & Patrick, 2025). Once there, the team evaluates the situation,

defuses the crisis and performs a clinical assessment. According to this evaluation, the person can

be placed into the treatment services, stabilized on-site, or referred to other suitable resources. This

cycle ends with paperwork and in some cases follow-up interaction.

The output of programs can be named as the quantifiable accomplishment of program

tasks. The examples are success in the de-escalation of crisis, mental health assessment, and

referral to a treatment provider. These outputs will give grounds to determine the effectiveness of

the program as well as accountability.

Staff Roles, Skills, and Training

A properly established staffing system, as well as specialized skills and training, are the key

to the successful implementation of the MHCRT program. The main staff members are the police

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officers who have gone through crisis intervention training courses, licensed mental health

clinicians, program coordinator, and support staff whose duty is to handle data management and

administration.

The roles of police officers that took part in the program are to guarantee safety, assistance

with de-escalating the situation, and collaboration with clinicians in responding to the crisis. To

illustrate it, one of the officers might guard the scene and establish the relationship with the

individual as a clinician performs a mental health assessment (Oblath et al., 2025). Clinicians

introduce expertise in diagnosis, intervention and treatment planning since in this way the team can

supply an all-round response to complex situations.

The program coordinator will be responsible of the daily activity within the program, the

hiring of external agencies and the running of the program in a continuous and effective fashion.

The support staff play a vital role in maintaining a record and keeping track of results obtained and

providing support to program evaluation.

All members of the staff are expected to take specialized training like Crisis Intervention

Training (CIT) as well de-escalation and mental health awareness. The officers as an illustration

can be involved in the simulation related training to practice on how to act in response to crisis

situations, and clinicians could undergo more training about the functioning in the law enforcement

environment. The main reason to keep the high level of providing the service and adapting to the

new challenges is continuous development of professionalism.

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References

Jr., F.P.R. B. (2019). Flawed Criminal Justice Policies: At the Intersection of the Media, Public

Fear and Legislative Response (2nd ed.). Carolina Academic Press.

https://ccis.vitalsource.com/books/9781531011376

Liu, T., & Patrick. (2025). Towards an Enhanced Business Case Development for Public–Private

Partnership (PPP) Projects: A Comparative Study of China and New Zealand. Buildings,

15(7), 1154–1154. https://doi.org/10.3390/buildings15071154

Oblath, R., Beaugard, C. A., Herrera, C.-N., Xu, C., Syed, S., Sadatis, C., Duncan, A., Gann, G.,

Plange, E., Ferguson, T., Khan, S., Katkhuda, F., Henderson, D. C., Savage, J., & Morabito,

M. S. (2025). Bridging crisis and care: exploring the role of behavioral health professionals

in a police co-response model. Health & Justice, 13(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s40352-

025-00381-1

Theuer, A., Wilson, M. G., Abelson, J., & Eisler, L. (2026). Responding to people in crisis: a policy

analysis of the Hamilton Mobile Crisis Rapid Response Team (MCRRT) model. Advances

in Mental Health, 1–17. https://doi.org/10.1080/18387357.2025.2606892

Welsh, W. N., & Harris, P. W. (2016). Criminal Justice Policy and Planning (5th ed.). Taylor &

Francis. https://ccis.vitalsource.com/books/9781317271550