AUSTIN, Texas — The conversation around how Austin responds to calls for mental health professionals has intensified.
Last week, former Austin police officer Christopher Taylor was sentenced to two years in prison for killing a man while responding to one of those calls. The Austin Police Association says police officers are not mental health experts.
Aloki Shah is a social worker with Integral Care, a mental health authority in Travis County. She is also the President of United Workers of Integral Care and says a mental health crisis would have been better handled with the help of a mental health provider.
"They come with a sense of compassion and care, rather than a sense to use any sort of force or make somebody comply and instead understand, What does this person need right now?'" Shah said.
But Shah said Integral Care is understaffed, saying low wages and burnout are contributing to the issue. As a result, the team is not responding to as many calls as they could be.
If they had full staffing, Shah said mental health crises could be prevented.
"You would have social workers, case managers meeting with folks who do have mental health problems. And, you know, just having a service before they need to reach out to emergency services," Shah said.
Integral Care offers an Expanded Mobile Crisis Outreach Team that partners with first responders, but the program only operates at certain hours. Austin City Councilmember Ryan Alter said they need to offer it 24/7, so he increased the funding to hire people including mental health professionals and dispatchers.
"It's an additional couple million dollars," Alter said. "We don't always need a badge and a gun or a paramedic or a firefighter to show up to some of the calls that we're dispatching them to. You can have individuals who have a different training."
It's training that Shah believes is desperately needed.
"We still need more mental health professionals. We're a growing city. We need to make sure that these teams are expanded and they have everything that they need to be successful," Shah said.
Alter said he expects Integral Care to hire somewhere between 10 and 20 people, and he believes the changes will be implemented in April.