The Seattle City Council’s public safety committee Tuesday is being briefed on the effort to upgrade the 911 emergency dispatch system in the city including incorporating a new pilot program that deploys social workers and behavioral health specialists with Seattle Police officers for a limited set of circumstances when mental health expertise is needed and the situation is deemed safe for non-police intervention.

The new $1.5 million “dual dispatch” program will begin a process of dispatching “civilian staff to augment the current response to 911 calls with a mental/behavioral health nexus,” the city said, “strengthening our public safety network by diversifying our 911 response options.”

Under the pilot, 911 calls dispatched involving someone suffering a mental crisis would include the specialists arriving with police at situations that don’t involve someone who is injured or sick, an “imminent danger,” weapons, or narcotics, according to Tuesday’s presentation.

It is an extremely limited set of circumstances. Seattle handles some 10,000 911 calls a week but only about 6,000 of them involve the dispatch of Seattle Fire or police. Any calls where mental crisis appears to be an issue — and where none of the above safety situations have been reported — could be a call where the dual dispatch workers could be included.

The recent example of a person suffering a crisis that SPD responded to with an armed standoff on a Capitol Hill street would not have qualified for a dual dispatch due to 911 callers reporting possible gunfire.

According to Tuesday’s presentation, the program will come as Seattle’s Community Safety and Communications Center Department is transitioning its 911 procedures to include a “quality assurance” software system already in use for Seattle Fire dispatch that officials say will take some of the guesswork out of the dispatching process by suggesting “questions for complicated situations,” suggesting follow-up questions, and help to standardize the dispatch process to “reduce implicit bias.”

The 911 dispatch changes join other logistical overhauls underway at SPD. Earlier this month, Chief Adrian Diaz announced a new scheduling strategy designed to make better use of available officers as the department tries to boost its ranks.

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