Former HRC vice chair urges trauma‑informed policing and clearer co‑response staffing as CHL transition puts pilot in doubt

Former Human Rights Commission vice chair Elizabeth O'Callaghan returned to brief the commission on the history and outstanding policy recommendations related to Worcester Police Department (WPD) responses to mental‑health crises.

O'Callaghan said HRC engagement began with the mayor's mental‑health task force and continued when WPD created a policy‑review committee in 2023. The commission and task‑force work examined Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) training and co‑response pilot models, including a local pilot that paired Community Health Link clinicians with police officers.

"We looked at a couple different models," O'Callaghan said, describing a multi‑month process that led the task force to recommend a co‑response approach that pairs clinicians with officers. She told the commission the city issued an RFP to support pilot work (the initial RFP was described at the meeting as approximately $1 million), but several commissioners and O'Callaghan said that subsequent funding was not sustained and the pilot is no longer running in its earlier form after CHL's transition.

O'Callaghan summarized HRC recommendations to update WPD policy 830 (the emergency mental‑health policy, last revised 2011). Recommended changes included adopting trauma‑informed language and best practices from model policy sources such as the International Association of Chiefs of Police, explicitly acknowledging that people experiencing mental‑health crises are often more vulnerable and more likely to be victims than perpetrators, and adding operational guidance to leverage mobile crisis services and community partners for victims, witnesses and people with intellectual or developmental disabilities.

She specifically urged the development of a policy to guide interactions with people who have intellectual or developmental disabilities, noting they may have communication differences, impulse‑control challenges, or difficulty following police directives and are disproportionately impacted in crisis encounters.

Commissioners asked about CIT coverage and training requirements. Participants recalled prior WPD goals to expand CIT training (a voluntary 40‑hour CIT course) but noted coverage gaps and staff constraints. City staff present said 85 officers previously had taken CIT training but that training availability, time and funding limited in‑person sessions; commissioners asked WPD in August to clarify which trainings are mandatory, how many officers are CIT‑trained now, and whether social‑worker or clinician positions embedded with police remain funded.

Members agreed to invite WPD to the commission's August meeting with a focused list of questions about the status of co‑response teams, grant continuity after CHL's closure, current staffing of social workers/clinicians, and concrete timelines for policy updates. O'Callaghan and other commissioners said the HRC's prior recommendations have already been used as supporting material in litigation addressing police responses to mental‑health calls, underscoring the policy stakes for the city.

The commission did not adopt new policy at the meeting but directed staff to follow up with WPD and to prepare questions for the August presentation.