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Stage 5: Implementing and Monitoring the MHCRT Program

A. Design Monitoring Instruments

Stage 5 is concerned with assuring that the program is being implemented in the way it was planned, identifying issues early enough before they become insoluble, and establishing a culture of responsibility at the beginning of implementation. The monitoring system will be based on three levels of monitoring, which are the daily operation tracking, the monthly supervisory, and the quarterly program-wide monitoring. The levels are connected to the next one, forming a continuous feedback loop that keeps the program on track and accountable. Tracking captures what is going on the ground on a daily basis following each crisis call. Monthly reviews allow the supervisors to identify ongoing trends before they become institutional issues (Welsh & Harris, 2016). Quarterly evaluations magnify and review the overall implementation of the program against the design laid out in Stage 4.

The information that will be gathered will include response times, volume of calls, the type of crisis that was dealt with, outcomes of individuals served, the number of hours that were logged in the training program per staff member, and any incidents of use of force. These data points are not random - each of them relates directly to a fundamental aspect of the program design. When response times are on the upswing, that is an operating indication (Welsh & Harris, 2016). Whenever referrals are in progress and not being done, it indicates a disconnect in the follow-through or partnership coordination. If force use incidents have not been decreasing with time, then it is questionable whether the field is implementing trauma-informed training.

Within 24 hours of each response, the clinician and the responding officer will fill in post-call report forms. The administrative personnel will input such information into the centralized system in less than 48 hours. The Program Coordinator prepares weekly summaries and files official monthly reports that are sent to the agency leadership. Quarterly reports are submitted to funding bodies. The annual report gives us a full overview of the initial year of implementation of the program.

When issues are observed - a consistent discrepancy in follow-through of referrals, a team that is experiencing difficulties in communicating with each other, a partner agency that is failing to respond to referrals in a timelier manner, etc. - the Program Coordinator will organize a problem-solving meeting within two weeks of the issue being identified. An action plan is written, which is corrective and allocated to a specific responsible person, and which is followed through the following monthly review process to ensure that nothing slips through the cracks.

B. Design Monitoring Instruments

The MHCRT program will be based on service records, service provider data, and participant data as the key monitoring instruments, with occasional observational data obtained with the help of supervisory ride-alongs (Callender, 2022). This blend was not accidental since no one instrument alone is capable of painting the entire picture of how a program like this is operating.

Service records contain the raw data of operations performed by the team, when and what they did, and the result. The program can know whether the referrals are really being received and followed through on, rather than merely being generated on paper, based on the service provider data provided by the partner agencies to the program, including mental health clinics, emergency shelters, and hospitals. The program knows whether the individuals it is intended to serve actually found it useful and respectful by having the participant data, which is gathered through short voluntary surveys provided at the follow-up contact (Callender, 2022). Qualitative layer of observational data in the form of quarterly supervisory ride-alongs will give a view of whether the team is operating as a unit, whether the team is practicing with trauma-informed care, and whether documentation is being managed properly.

The most common tool is the form of the post-call report, which is the keystone of the whole monitoring system. It records the date, the place where the crisis took place, the nature of the crisis, the methods of de-escalation employed, the necessity of force, the result of the encounter, the need to make a referral, to whom, and the need to schedule a follow-up. Signed by both the officer and clinician. The partner agency's monthly check-in form monitors the number of MHCRT referrals that each agency got, the number of people who made contact and received services, average time to first appointment, and the barriers faced. The experience survey questionnaire is deliberately short, with four-question structured items and one open-ended one, since the participants are not in a state of mind to fill out long questionnaires after the crisis. The supervisory ride-along checklist addresses areas of communication between officer and clinician, quality of on-scene assessment, completion of safety planning, and correctness of documentation.

C. Designate Responsibility for Data Collection, Storage and Analysis

The completion of post-call forms should be done by officers and clinicians within 24 hours. Data entry is done within 48 hours of receiving those forms by the administrative staff. The compilation, summary, and reporting role is the responsibility of the Program Coordinator, who prepares monthly summaries on the tenth of the next month and quarterly reports within thirty days of the end of each quarter. Agency leadership will examine quarterly reports and authorize a plan of corrective action. The finance department is in charge of all fiscal data input, and it produces monthly expense reports. Physical copies are stored in a locked administrative office for at least three years according to standard grant compliance requirements, and all forms will be scanned and uploaded electronically within one week of completion.

D. Fiscal Monitoring Plan.

The federal sources of funding, like the Bureau of Justice Assistance, that are in Stage 4 as the major early-stage funding mechanism, have stringent fiscal reporting requirements. Failure to comply may mean that funding is lost in the middle of the program, and this would be calamitous at the implementation level. The fiscal monitoring plan is thus designed to remain far ahead of such requirements as opposed to scrambling to achieve them by the reporting deadlines (Cirkel, 2025).

All MHCRT expenditures will have a dedicated budget ledger that will be monthly tracked against the line-item budget of Stage 4. Each spending category, personnel, training, equipment, vehicles, operational costs, and partnership expenses, will be tracked separately, so that variances can be seen at a very small scale. The administrative staff creates monthly expense reports, which are reviewed by the Program Coordinator and sent to the agency leadership and the applicable funding agency quarterly. In case there is a variance of over ten percent in any category of the budget compared to the estimates made, the Program Coordinator must have a justification and present a formal budget change request to the leadership within a thirty-day period. This science will ensure that small breaches do not escalate into big financial issues

E. Information System Capabilities.

The MHCRT program will implement a cloud-based case management system that has the potential to be interconnected with the law enforcement agency's current Computer-Aided Dispatch system. This will make sure that all MHCRT calls are automatically logged and time-stamped upon dispatching, so that it will be impossible to duplicate information manually or to have information lapses. The system will also have links with partner agency databases to make referral tracking across organizational boundaries. Such integration work demands specific IT resources, and it cannot be assumed that it will automatically occur; it is a one-time set-up cost that is part of the operational budget. The system will be HIPAA-compliant and use role-based access controls so that only personnel who have a legitimate need can access sensitive mental health information. Employees will undergo yearly data privacy training, and a breach response plan will be kept in liaison with the IT department of the agency.

F. Feedback Mechanisms for Staff, Clients, and Stakeholders.

Data monitoring is only practical as long as it measures back to individuals who require it. Once a week, the team will have a short meeting to review the volume of calls, flagged incidents, and compliance with training to ensure that the data remains accessible and can be acted upon instead of vanishing into administrative folders. Individual performance reviews (four times a year) provide every officer and clinician with structured feedback based on the program's own metrics. The full team receives aggregate findings of the participant surveys monthly to help the staff know how the individuals are experiencing the program (Jr., 2019). Quarterly program reports and an annual community report in plain language are sent to the stakeholders and funders. Partner agencies also engage in quarterly coordination meetings where referral information and services gaps are discussed collectively, ensuring that the MHCRT is truly embedded in the greater service ecosystem, not acting alone.

References

Callender, M. (2022).  Primary Care Mental Health Treatment Requirement (MHTR) Practitioner Manual. (v14 ed.) Institute of Public Safety, Crime and Justice.

https://pure.northampton.ac.uk/en/publications/primary-care-mental-health-treatment-requirement-mhtr-practitione-2/

Cirkel, A. M. (2025). Structural Reforms to Support Fiscal Consolidation.

https://doi.org/10.5089/9798229035415.018

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

Welsh, W. N., & Harris, P. W. (2016). Criminal Justice Policy and Planning (5th ed.). Taylor & Francis. https://ccis.vitalsource.com/books/9781317271550