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Takoma Park outlines early results of clinician-led mental-health pilot, council presses for broader data

Takoma Park City Council · March 19, 2026
AI-Generated Content: All content on this page was generated by AI to highlight key points from the meeting. For complete details and context, we recommend watching the full video. so we can fix them.

Summary

City staff reported 89 calls handled during clinician hours since December and said clinicians handled about half of those alone; council members asked staff to track after-hours and 988-related referrals and to coordinate data with Montgomery County before deciding expansion or 24/7 staffing.

The Takoma Park City Council heard an update on the city’s behavioral-health pilot program and pressed staff to expand data collection before deciding whether to extend hours or scale the model.

Deputy City Manager Zamara Habte told the council the pilot, which launched a full clinician presence in October, recorded 89 calls from Dec. 1 through Feb. 28, about 1.4 calls per clinician workday. Habte said the program used three response models: clinician-only, co-responder (clinician and police), and police-led responses. Of the 89 calls logged during clinician hours, about 46 (roughly 52%) were clinician-only responses and 27 (about 30%) were co-responder calls; follow-up requests accounted for roughly 70% of incidents in the…

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