911: A New Approach When Calls Involve a Mentally Disturbed Person

Nearly 20% of all 911 calls involve a mentally disturbed person. In the past, all of these calls were responded to by police with little to no mental health training, sometimes ending in tragedy. Recently, there has been a push to create mental health emergency response teams to provide proper support for those in crisis.

Dick’s guest, Che Stedman, is Assistant Chief of EMS Operations for the Madison Fire Department in Madison, Wisconsin, overseeing the Community Alternative Response Emergency Services program (CARES).