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Whatcom County task force plans February sequential intercept mapping workshop to sharpen diversion strategies

Incarceration Prevention and Reduction Task Force and Law and Justice Council · November 24, 2025
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Summary

Whatcom CountyIPRTF will hold a 1.5-day Sequential Intercept Mapping workshop in February to produce an operational product members can use to update the implementation plan, identify process barriers and prioritize high-leverage handoffs that cause people to be lost in the system.

Dean White, the presenter for the Incarceration Prevention and Reduction Task Force, framed the county's Sequential Intercept Map (SIM) as both a structural inventory and a workflow tool aimed at identifying where diversion opportunities can occur.

"The sequential intercept model was used as a framework, back in 2022, to lay the foundation for the kinds of projects that would be proposed," White said, describing three SIM tables: services currently sufficient to divert people, services that exist but lack capacity, and services that do not exist locally but would reduce incarceration if created.

Task force co-chair Peter Frasier said the February workshop should produce a usable product. "What is the product you hope to see coming out of the 1 and a half day Sequential Intercept mapping workshop, coming next February? And what is the use you hope will be made of the SIM workshop product?" he asked the group.

Members emphasized the need to move beyond a descriptive map toward operational procedures and measurable outcomes. Melora with Health & Community Services urged the group to agree a shared definition of diversion and to align the list of programs to intercept points; she highlighted pre-arrest alternatives such as LEAD, alternative response teams, GRACE, and mobile crisis outreach.

Several participants urged the workshop to focus on bottlenecks where people are lost between agencies. "Understanding where some of the process barriers are to people being able to avail themselves of the various diversion opportunities" was a stated workshop goal, Dean White said.

The task force plans to publish the SIM output and use it to update the county's implementation plan and to prioritize where coordination or policy changes could produce the greatest reductions in jail involvement. Heather Flaherty said planners will recruit the right people for the February meeting and will circulate an application for attendees.