On July 1, the El Paso County Sheriffís Office launched a co-responder patrol unit program called the Behavioral Health Connect Unit, which pairs an EPCSO deputy with a licensed behavioral health clinician from UCHealthís Memorial Hospital. The BHCON unit is a five-year pilot program, funded by a grant from the Colorado Department of Human Services.Chief Clif Northam with the EPCSO said the motivation behind the program is to save EPCSO patrol deputies time and to create a more efficient way to handle mental health calls. ìUsually, each call requires two deputies who then have to take the person to the emergency room for a mental health evaluation,î Northam said.ìInstead of taking two deputies off the road, this program has a deputy and a mental health clinician paired together, and sometimes we do not even have to go to the ER because the clinician can provide counseling on site or even take them to a walk-in clinic.îNortham said the BHCON unit not only helps save the deputiesí time on the streets, but it also saves space in the EPC jail. ìBefore, we did not know what to do with these folks,î he said. ìBy default, if they were not going to a mental health facility, they went to jail. Now, we can link them with resources so they can get help on their own and allow them to stay at home or take them to a walk-in clinic rather than the jail.îThe BHCON unit is available Sunday, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m., but Northam said he already sees the need for two more units because of the volume and timing of mental health-related calls. However, most of the patrol deputies have been trained in crisis intervention and mental health/first aid so they have a good idea of how to approach mental health situations, he said.ìThe drawback to not having the BHCON unit always available is that we do not have the time or the resources to follow up on the mental health-related calls and make sure they get hooked up with the right resources,î Northam said.The BHCON unit program will be evaluated, and Northam said as long as the statistics indicate progress in helping to decrease ER visits and stays, reducing the number of people going to jail for mental health-related issues and decreasing the overall manpower it takes to deal with those types of calls, the program is a success.ìIf, after the five years are up, we can show the program is a success, we can get the grant extended,î Northam said. There is even a chance a second BHCON unit could be created before the five-year mark using the departmentís own resources, if it has proven to be as effective as it has so far, he said. Since July 1, Northam said the team has been on more than 100 calls (excluding September).As part of the same grant for the BHCON unit, the EPCSO received funding to start a year-long ìMan Therapyî media campaign aimed at de-stigmatizing mental health issues in men, Northam said.According to Man Therapyís website, the program is the result of a 2007 partnership between Cactus, an advertising agency in Denver, the Office of Suicide Prevention at the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment and the Carson J Spencer Foundation, a nonprofit suicide prevention organization in Colorado. The program launched in 2012 and has drawn national and international attention for its ìcreative use of media in health literacy,î the website states.ìMen ages 25 to 45 have been found to be the highest number of suicides over the last few years,î he said. ìMen do not like asking for help. This campaign is a humorous way to talk about a serious subject. We want to get men laughing and talking about their feelings, like being suicidal or struggling with depression.î
