EL PASO, Texas (KFOX14/CBS4) — The City of Las Cruces launched Project LIGHT in March which created a crisis intervention team to help respond to mental health calls that go to 911 operators.
Project LIGHT stands for Lessen the Incidence of Grief, Harm and Trauma.
The Las Cruces Fire Department has two crisis repose teams under project LIGHT.
Each team consists of a master-licensed social worker and a fire paramedic.
“They respond to behavioral calls. Anybody who calls 911 and expresses suicidal ideations or suicide attempts. They go to those as well as anything reported as a drug overdose and the last call type is CPRs and any deaths in the field,” Jason Smith, Las Cruces Fire Chief said.
The LIGHT team does not operate 24/7, according to Smith.
But Smith said they do provide mental health services 6 days a week, Monday through Saturday, from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m.
We looked at the call types we wanted to respond to and when those occur most often,” Smith said. “We’ve really designed the team to be available when it’s needed the most.
The interventions the LIGHT team does are complex and take much more time on scene than the typical EMS response, Smith said.
“On average it’s just over an hour with that client or patient,” Smith said. “That’s just the initial work. We also have a case manager who provides follow-up.”
Smith said the LIGHT team has been helpful to both patients and first responders.
“They are our communities only crisis response team right now to the 911 system,” Smith said.
The LIGHT team is not only dispatched through 911 calls, police can also request the LIGHT team after assessing a situation on the scene.
“If LCPD feels that the individual they are talking with can benefit from the help the LIGHT team could give then they will call us over the radio and ask us to send a LIGHT,” Albert Flores, the Deputy Director for the Mesilla Valley Regional Dispatch Authority said.
The addition of the light team has lessened the load and optimized resources, according to Flores.
“One of the things that we get stuck with is sometimes resources with these types of calls,” Flores said. “Now that we have the LIGHT unit out there we have available resources to handle the calls throughout the city.”
Smith told KFOX14 that the city is partnered with several agencies to utilize Project LIGHT, including Families Youth and Innovations, the Mesilla Valley Hospital, Dona Ana County’s Crisis Triage Center, and more.
“There’s multiple different agencies that we partner with and collaborate with every day in the community,” he said.
Smith said they do face challenges when it comes to availability.
“I think the challenge that we’re going to face is the team’s availability and when they can be called out and used for delivering services. Right now they are partnering a lot with the police department. These are typical calls where there might be a scene security issue so we’re trying to make sure that we have the team available and they’re needed and that they respond to an appropriate amount of calls,” Smith said.
The city is looking to expand the LIGHT team, according to Smith.
“We do need to look at having a team available when needed so I think for next fiscal year we will look into adding potentially a third team that will cover the peak demand times where we will have two teams working,” Smith said.
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