Louisville council members want more experience for planned 911 mental crisis specialists

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- A plan to put crisis intervention specialists in Louisville's 911 center was delayed temporarily as city leaders push for more strict hiring requirements.

The plan, first unveiled in October, would divert some calls to first responders away from police officers and instead be handled by trained behavioral health experts.

Calls involving a person in crisis would first be assessed by a crisis interventionist, hired and trained by Seven Counties Services. If necessary, the behavioral health expert could dispatch a mobile mental health team, police or both to make sure they get the help they really need.

"We've done a lot of research looking into how other programs exist and how they are unique," Nicole Wiseman, with Seven Counties Services, said at the time of the announcement. "This is the kind of de-escalation work we've been doing for 50 years now."

Metro Council voted Thursday to hold funding for the program, at least for now, after some council members expressed concerns about the contract as currently written. Right now, the contract states that the minimum requirements to be hired for the job state that six months experience as a behavioral health specialist is needed.

"I think it's a concern when we're thinking about the level of skill needed to carry out this work with fidelity," Metro Councilwoman Nicole George at a recent meeting of the public safety committee.

Metro Council as a whole voted to table the contract of more than $1.6 million until revisions could be made to increase minimum requirements and create more detailed plans on how the program will report it's progress.

The hope is that those changes could be made before council first organizational meeting of the year on Jan. 6.