Scott Osiecki, CEO of the Alcohol Drug Addiction and Mental Health Services Board of Cuyahoga County, stands in front of a microphone presenting what a care response program is at a Feb. 15 meeting at Miles Elementary School. In the foreground, six people sit and listen to the presentation. On a projector screen on a stage, a slide shows the definition of care response.
Scott Osiecki, CEO of the Alcohol Drug Addiction and Mental Health Services Board of Cuyahoga County, shares what a care response program is with people who attended a Feb. 15 meeting at Miles Elementary School. Credit: Stephanie Casanova / Signal Cleveland

Residents and mental health advocates can help guide the development of a non-police crisis response program in Cleveland at a series of upcoming public meetings.

The Alcohol Drug Addiction and Mental Health Services (ADAMHS) Board of Cuyahoga County and the Cleveland Department of Public Health are asking residents, community leaders and mental health and substance use providers to share their feedback on what non-police crisis response – or care response – should look like. 

What is care response? Care response is a program where a mental health expert and often a paramedic respond to emergency mental health crisis calls. This program does not involve police at all.

The series of meetings started Feb. 15 and will continue until March 28, with some meetings in person and some via Zoom. 

The ADAMHS Board is working with FrontLine, a community behavioral health center, to launch a care response pilot program in two areas of Cleveland, ZIP codes 44105 and 44102, later this year. 

The pilot program will consist of five teams, each with a licensed behavioral health professional and a peer support specialist, which is someone with lived experience with mental health or substance use disorder who has been through training and certification. 

FrontLine manages the County’s 988 suicide and crisis lifeline and already has an adult mobile crisis team and a child response team.

Advocates involved from the beginning

The meetings come after mental health advocates asked the ADAMHS Board for more community involvement late last year. The board contracted R Strategy Group to gather community input and help host these meetings. 

Scott Osiecki, CEO of the ADAMHS Board, stands in front of a mic presenting information about care response, a non-police crisis response program in the works. Fourteen people sit around a handful of cafeteria tables and listen.
Scott Osiecki, CEO of the ADAMHS Board, shares what a care response program is with people who attended a Feb. 15 meeting at Miles Elementary School. The Board will host more meetings where they will take input from residents as they build the program. Credit: Stephanie Casanova / Signal Cleveland

Mental health advocates and community leaders have long advocated for an alternative to police response. They have ensured they’re involved in the process since the ADAMHS Board started looking into bringing care response to Cleveland. 

In 2022, Policy Matters and REACH worked with the Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless to produce a report titled, “Talk to Me Like a Regular Person, Not a Criminal.” 

The advocacy and policy organizations then created a coalition, Care for CLE, bringing together two dozen organizations to ensure that city and county officials involved the residents who are most likely to use care response in planning the program. 

The board previously used R Strategy group to research what care response could look like in Cuyahoga County. The resulting report estimated that an 18-month pilot program with two teams would cost $1.65 million. That includes training, vehicles, equipment, and salaries of a lead trainer, licensed behavioral health professionals and peer support specialists. 

In November, the ADAMHS Board allocated $2.5 million from its 2024 general budget for the pilot program. That amount doesn’t include the current $59,500 contract with R Strategy Group.

The program is expected to launch late summer this year. The five teams will work 24/7, which means only one or two will be working each shift, Scott Osiecki, CEO of the ADAMHS Board, said in the Feb. 15 meeting. 

Upcoming meetings

6 to 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 27, at Fulton Branch Library, 3545 Fulton Rd.

11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Thursday, March 7, on  Zoom. RSVP here.

5:30 to 7 p.m. Tuesday, March 26, at Stella Walsh Recreation Center, 7345 Broadway Ave. 

6 to 7:30 p.m. Thursday, March 28, at Michael Zone Rec Center, 6301 Lorain Ave, 

A freelance reporter based in Arizona, Stephanie was the inaugural criminal justice reporter with Signal Cleveland until October 2024. She wrote about the criminal legal system, explaining the complexities and shedding light on injustices/inequities in the system and centering the experiences of justice-involved individuals, both victims and people who go through the criminal legal system and their families.