Austin to pilot three‑person multidisciplinary response team for high‑acuity mental‑health calls

The Public Safety Committee for the Austin City Council heard a briefing Sept. 22 on "Austin First," a six‑month pilot that will place a three‑person multidisciplinary team — a paramedic, a mental‑health clinician from Integral Care and an Austin Police Department officer — in a single vehicle to respond to high‑acuity mental‑health calls in a downtown cluster identified by city data.

City health and safety officials said the pilot is intended to reduce adverse events, increase de‑escalation opportunities and connect people in crisis to follow‑up care. "Our goal here is to develop a plan to deploy a team to minimize the risk of those adverse events across our community," said Dr. Mark Escoff, chief medical officer for the City of Austin, during the briefing.

The pilot team and rationale City staff described the new unit as complementary to existing crisis services that have focused on low‑ and moderate‑acuity responses (for example, C3 dispatch clinicians, the Mobile Crisis Outreach Team (MCOT), and community paramedics). Presenters said those programs have reduced arrests, emergency detentions and officer scene times since the Meadows Institute report in 2019 and subsequent changes. The new pilot targets a remaining gap: incidents where a person is in severe crisis and…