By Craig Anderson

There’s nothing trivial about mental illness, but some cases are clearly more dire than others are.

According to behavioral health clinician Jenna Haines, every couple weeks or so, Milford police officers face a potentially suicidal person or perhaps someone who is psychotic.

And thanks to her experience working with the mentally disabled, when such a situation arises, Ms. Haines is equipped to step forward with those first responders.

Since starting as a part-timer at MPD in February 2021, Ms. Haines has ridden with city officers in their patrol vehicles always ready to assist. There’s a wide array of situations where she’s a tremendous help to both law enforcement and whoever is in a troubled state of mind.

“The benefit of riding along is that the calls may not come in specifically as a mental health call,” said Ms. Haines, who previously served as a mental health clinician at James T. Vaughn Correctional Center in Smyrna.

“Something I’ve learned a lot since being here is that there’s almost always some form of behavioral health aspects. Whether it’s a domestic or disorderly, anything like a shoplifting, you know, there’s almost always a component to it, where ... someone is either struggling with addiction or having a mental health concern.”

Ms. Haines, who moved to full-time employment with Milford PD in September 2021 and works alongside two other part-time clinicians, said her training matters because, for example, with “an actively psychotic person, if you don’t know what you’re looking at, as a general member of society, it can be very concerning, very scary, very weird.”

Sometimes, too, an early contact can detour a more serious incident from happening later.

“The way I like to think about it is that anytime we intersect with people that aren’t (mentally balanced), we possibly prevented something worse ahead,” she said.

“We’re able to intersect when someone’s just having a bad day or just moderately needs to check in with their therapist, for example.”

Besides the public, Milford Police Chief Kenneth Brown said Ms. Haines provides a boost for his officers, too.

“There’s a lot of bonding taking place when they’re riding in a vehicle,” he said. “And so she can be that support person for the officer, as well.”

In some situations, Ms. Haines can provide citizens services that substitute for a trip to the hospital.

“In many cases, an officer would have normally ... had to transport them to the hospital and then, sometimes, wait there for hours,” Chief Brown said. “Now, the officers are freed up and not only are they providing a better service to that person, but they’re getting proper help quicker.”

In Dover, the city police department is nearing the launch of a unit focused on connecting those in need to mental health services by partnering with Dover Behavioral Health System, spokesman Sgt. Mark Hoffman said.

In the last 15-plus months, Dover officers have responded to 585 calls classified as “psychiatric incidents,” he said.

“Many of these incidents may have been determined to be a different classification, but they were initially received as a psych incident,” he said. “This does not include cases where a mental illness or related issue is attached to or the cause of other incidents, such as domestics, shopliftings, loitering/panhandling complaints, drugs, etc.”

Regarding proposed legislation sponsored by Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., and others to fund training to enhance police mental health-related interactions, Sgt. Hoffman said the department “is supportive of any action that provides quality resources and training opportunities to our officers to help ensure we continue to provide needed services to our community.”

“De-escalation and mental health training is taught in the police academy and routinely throughout an officer’s career. Any additional training opportunities will be a welcome addition to the steps our agency has already taken and mandates for our officers.”

In Camden, police personnel respond to mental health calls for service multiple times a month, including three times in just four days over last weekend, Chief Marcus Whitney said. The officers utilize Mobile Crisis Intervention Services through the Department of Health and Social Services, Bayhealth Hospital, Kent Campus and/or Dover Behavioral.

Chief Whitney said he agreed with Sen. Coons “that additional resources need to be made available and law enforcement should have easier access to these resources in order to assist persons in these situations.”

Meanwhile, in Smyrna, a full-time victim’s services coordinator has worked with a mental health clinician assigned to the agency since late 2018, spokesman Lt. Brian Donner said. The program is primarily grant-funded.

“Both our (victim’s services) coordinator and our mental health clinician review daily reports and calls for service and see where they can help,” he said. “They also receive direct referrals from our officers and detectives.”

Nearly four years into the initiative, Lt. Donner said there’s been a buy-in by the public.

“Citizens call (or) come in directly to coordinate services with them,” he said, adding that “the greatest impact has been on cutting down repeat calls for service to locations and/or persons that are not necessarily of a criminal nature.”

Officers are called to cover a wide range of responses, Lt. Donner said, and “unfortunately, the police are the last line for everything. When no one else can or wants to get involved, the police get sent.

“While we have evolved in the profession in terms of being more community-oriented and being aware of mental health issues and de-escalation, etc., the fact remains, we are still just cops. Our mental health staff can take that drug-addicted person or that person suffering from untreated schizophrenia, etc., and they can give them the real services that they need that we, as the police, just aren’t equipped to offer.”

These types of responses were also on the mind of Dewey Beach officers last week, as they received education through the American Law Enforcement Training & Consulting program Wednesday. Dr. Greg Warren, a retired Delaware State Police captain, visits several times a year “with courses having a strong focus on mental health,” DBPD spokesman Sgt. Cliff Dempsey said.

Courses include:

• Law Enforcement Ethics and Professionalism.

• Effective Communication.

• Conflict Management.

• Crisis Intervention.

• De-escalation.

• Implicit Bias.

• Preventing Race Bias Policing.

• Risk Mitigation and Prevention.

Sgt. Dempsey said that SUN Behavioral Health’s opening in Georgetown a few years ago “was a game-changer for Sussex County.”

“Now, when we respond to calls involving mental health issues, our officers are usually back on patrol in one to two hours. This is opposed to, sometimes, half, if not all, of a shift.”

In addition, “Being a seasonal community, (our officers) are challenged with these types of calls for service annually. Those that reside in town that suffer mental health issues/crises are usually known to our police officers. Usually, relationships are built, and the officers are familiar with the needs of the individuals.”

But, he added, the influx of summer residents in Dewey Beach can lead to incidents with unknown persons. “These people are not known to the officers and pose different challenges,” he said.