The City of Raleigh is so close to realizing Raleigh residents desire for an alternative response program. The City Manager's office committed to diverting 911 calls related to mental and behavioral health to mental health clinicians and to providing care navigation that connects these individuals to short and long term resources. The last piece needed to have a comprehensive alternative response team in Raleigh is the establishment of community response teams.

Community response teams are unarmed three-person teams consisting of EMTs, mental health clinicians and peer support specialists. The deployment of these teams to mental health and behavioral health calls has proven to reduce crime, reduce hospitalizations and the population of persons with mental illnesses in jails, conserve police resources, and successfully connect our most vulnerable residents with the resources they need. But the City of Raleigh needs Wake County as a partner to establish these teams. Help us demand Wake County not stand in the way of what Raleigh needs!