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Cass County task force maps gaps in behavioral-health crisis response, calls for data and training
Summary
Task force members and regional health providers reviewed capacity limits, a new 72-hour hold, and existing mobile-crisis and telehealth tools; they agreed to compile utilization data, revive CIT-style training and reconvene to define short-term wins and longer-term fiscal options.
Tony Greenberg, chair of the Cass County Behavioral Health Task Force and a county commissioner, opened the June meeting by saying the group must develop evidence-based options to address rising public-safety and behavioral-health needs in the county amid growth and property-tax caps.
Robert Wilson, Cass County administrator, summarized themes from prior meetings and urged the group to focus on immediate assessment-and-placement options and whether statutory authority is sufficient to hold people long enough to assess and develop treatment plans. "Immediate accessible mental health resources for this group are needed within the community," Wilson said.
Health-system speakers described system limits and possible remedies. Jason Nelson of Sanford Health said his hospital—s behavioral-health unit is full daily and that law enforcement sometimes brings the same individuals back within a single shift after a brief release. "We don't have excess beds," he said, and urged better direct-referral pathways from law enforcement to providers.
Ty, chief executive of Prairie Saint John—s, said his facility is prepared to partner on acute psychiatric care and forensic services and noted growing patient acuity: length of stay is up about 12 percent and "our acuity this year is a 4.8 out of 5," he said, describing that as roughly 50 percent higher than the broader UHS benchmark.
Pam (task-force staff) presented an updated service-inventory matrix that lists local providers, ASAM service levels, whether sites are locked (involuntary) or unlocked (voluntary), access rules (self-referral versus law-enforcement drop-off) and likely reimbursement streams. Pam said the matrix is a draft intended to show where services already exist and where the real gaps are.
Participants discussed the statutory change that extended the maximum emergency hold to 72 hours during the last legislative session and emphasized that the new statute sets a maximum, not a required full hold. A county official and multiple providers said clinicians make the holding decision after assessment and that a 72-hour maximum gives clinicians more time when needed.
The group reviewed mobile-crisis and telehealth options. A state behavioral-health official said eCare (telehealth support for law enforcement) rolled out statewide and that, in the last 12 months, 69 percent of individuals assessed via the program were recommended to remain in the community. Local officials said that in urban areas with live mobile-crisis teams, eCare is used less often, while rural agencies rely on telehealth more.
Speakers also urged reviving the Community Intervention Training (CIT) curriculum, which trained officers, paramedics and clinicians to identify behavioral-health crises and dispatch trained responders; participants said the program reduced repeat contacts and produced more consistent cross-agency responses but declined after leadership turnover and the pandemic. Multiple agencies volunteered to help re-launch training and to provide contact points for coordination.
Several participants pressed for concrete data to distinguish whether the county—s primary problem is underutilization/awareness of existing services or a true lack of capacity. Jason Nelson shared an example dataset from April showing 356 mental-health calls for service to Fargo Police Department, with 786 officer responses and 268 total hours spent on those calls (about 11.2 days); the average length of those calls was roughly 20 minutes.
Actionable next steps recorded at the meeting included circulating the draft service matrix for provider feedback, compiling utilization and referral-source data across law enforcement, hospitals and mobile-crisis teams, identifying training leads to revive CIT-style instruction, and scheduling the next task-force meeting to review the assembled data. The group agreed to reach out to missing partners (chiefs from Fargo and West Fargo) before reconvening.
The meeting concluded with the chair and county staff agreeing to circulate follow-up requests and a tentative plan to meet again in late June or early July.
