With mental health calls growing, Parma and Parma Heights are the latest cities in Cuyahoga County that plan to hire social workers to respond to certain emergencies alongside police and fire departments. Soon, almost half of Cuyahoga County’s population will be reached by a co-response program.
And next Tuesday, the county plans to ask the County Council to use $3.5 million in opioid settlement funds to expand the program countywide.
“We’ve got about half the county population covered under this service, but the work ahead is to cover the rest of the county,” said Cuyahoga County Executive Chris Ronayne. “And that’s when we look forward to using those funds to help scale this to every community, all 59 in Cuyahoga County.”`
The cities of Cleveland, Shaker Heights and Cleveland Heights, among several others, already embed mental health professionals to some degree within their first responders.
Officials say they want more social workers responding alongside police and fire because of the growing number of calls relating to mental health, substance use and even issues like dementia. In the past 18 months, the Parma Fire Department responded to 102 overdoses, 659 psychological emergencies and 65 suicide attempts, said Parma Fire Chief Mike Lasky.
“These individuals in crisis require specialized care – care that addresses not just the immediate crisis, but also the underlying issues of long-term recovery,” said Parma Mayor Tim DeGeeter. “Too often, our already busy police and fire personnel are forced into the role of social workers, working to connect those in need with appropriate resources.”
How the Parma and Parma Heights program will operate
The program in Parma is initially funded by $100,000 the Parma City Council added into its budget this year, DeGeeter told Signal Cleveland. He expects that to be used to hire at least one social worker. Parma is also looking for other funding sources to make the program sustainable long-term.
In Parma and Parma Heights, 9-1-1 dispatchers will decide to send the social worker out on certain calls, said Parma Heights Police Chief Steven Greene. Or, first responders who get to the scene may put in a request for the mental health professional to join them on-site.
The social worker can provide crisis response in the moment and also connect residents to mental health or addiction treatment.
“Our clinicians will continue to follow up with their clients to ensure they are getting the services they need for a sustained solution,” DeGeeter said.
East Side pilot program finds success
DeGeeter decided he wanted to see a mental health professional available to respond to emergencies in Parma after observing the success of the program in nearby suburbs. In 2022, Shaker Heights opened its First CALL pilot program, which pairs licensed mental health clinicians with police officers and ‘peer support’ workers. A peer support worker is someone who has experienced mental health or substance use disorder challenges themselves.
Shaker Heights Mayor David Weiss said that the program in the suburbs on the east side of town was successful enough to expand to Cleveland Heights, Shaker Heights, South Euclid, Richmond Heights, and University Heights in 2024. Since then, the team has provided services to 2,180 residents across the six towns it serves. The program has three units of mental health and peer support workers that it can dispatch, Weiss said.
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The First CALL program fundraised about $1.2 million from public and private sources to run the program in 2024 and 2025. Weiss suspects the program saves money in the long-run by reducing repeated 9-1-1 calls from residents, though does not know concretely how much. Shaker Heights Police Chief Wayne Hudson said, prior to the program, one individual called 911 more than 150 times in a year.
“When our first CALL program personnel got involved and started linking that individual to services, we don’t receive those calls anymore,” Hudson said. “So we can concentrate on what we do best, which is fight fires, other emergencies and community policing.”