Several MetroWest agencies are playing central roles in the creation of the Middlesex County Restoration Center, a facility slated to open next year that supporters say aims to divert people with mental health and addictions from incarceration and unnecessary hospitalization.
Danna Mauch, co-chair of the dining center commission, said MetroWest influenced much of the center’s development. She cited the MetroWest Health Foundation, Defenders and the Framingham Police Department as resources in its development.
“The inspiration that we took for this work really came from the work that was developed in MetroWest and inspired a lot of other activity around the state to provide diversion from arrest and incarceration and diversion crisis,” said Mauch, who is also president and CEO of the Massachusetts Association for Mental Health.
MetroWest police departments were “early adopters” of crisis intervention in politics, Mauch said, particularly Framingham, which implemented the Jail Diversion program in 2003. The program instituted a model of co-responder, in which trained behavioral health clinicians travel with agents and respond to emergency calls.
Martin Cohen, President and CEO of MetroWest Health Foundationwhich helped fund the program and start the conversation between police and behavioral health officials, called MetroWest a “pioneering region.”
“We, by working with both law enforcement and the mental health community, were able to effect real change,” Cohen said.
Framingham Police Chief Lester Baker said he was still a patrol officer when the department introduced the diversion scheme. Over time, he said he saw the positive effects it had on the station and would “never go back”.
“It’s really gratifying, where we are, how it became what it is today,” Baker said. “I don’t know what we would do without her.”
“It’s our culture now”
Not only do those who need help benefit from clinicians, he said, but officers who can see the service they provide and learn from it also benefit.
“It’s our culture now,” Baker said. “We see this as a priority to treat people in mental health crisis and have someone on hand who is trained to do so.”
Co-responder models like the Framingham program have been replicated across the state and country, and have even had an international impact, with the department presenting to Irish police officialssaid Baker.
Although Baker said he was not directly involved in the planning of the Middlesex County Restoration Centre, he was in contact with the commission and provided support where possible. The partnership, he said, is one of many the commission has formed to determine how best to serve the community.
Framingham-based Advocates, which provides the department with clinicians to accompany them, has also helped the Restoration Center commission along the way. The nonprofit social service provider received a grant for the restoration center and helped with its overall planning.
Advocates President and CEO Diane Gould said people with behavioral health issues too often don’t get the proper care.
“There is an economic cost when people end up in the emergency room and have to stay there for days and weeks because there are not enough resources or when they end up being arrested and go to hospital. jail,” Gould said. “What they really need is treatment.”
Incarceration also has a “tremendous human cost,” Gould said, which the restoration center could help alleviate by adding an important step to the care system for people at the intersection of criminal justice and behavioral health. .
“It can change the trajectory of individuals and families,” Gould said.
Center housing
Before Middlesex can offer the service to its constituents – including those in MetroWest – Mauch said the commission must find a provider to host the centre. She added that the commission is preparing to release its plan and request for suppliers, when the bidding process will begin.
Mauch said she expects a positive response from potential suppliers and the goal is to have the center operational in 2023. Even so, Mauch said, there is still work to be done on this level in the Massachusetts.
“While we’re very excited to start this, we also recognize that there are needs like this across the state,” she said. “We hope we will quickly prove this concept and that others will adopt it.”
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