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Austin-Travis County EMS paramedic Justin Chandler, left to right, Austin police officer Jaime von Seltmann and Integral Care Clinician Christopher Moore are part of a pilot mental health emergency response program called Austin First on Thursday, Oct. 23, 2025.<\/p>\n
Jay Janner\/Austin American-Statesman<\/p>\n
Last month, Austin police officer Jamie von Seltmann responded to a 911 call reporting that a woman had barricaded herself in a bathroom at a downtown church. When von Seltmann arrived, she found someone who was clearly in the grips of a severe mental health crisis.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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\u201cYou could see the fear on her face,\u201d von Seltmann, who has spent 16 years on the Austin Police Department\u2019s crisis intervention team, said in an interview. \u201cShe was nervous, a little paranoid. Immediately, I began to say we\u2019re here to help, not hurt you.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Von Seltmann wasn\u2019t alone that day but her partners were not fellow police officers. Rather, she was joined by a behavioral health clinician with Integral Care, Travis County\u2019s mental health authority, and a paramedic with Austin\/Travis County EMS who specializes in mental health response.<\/p>\n
The trio responded to the call as part of a six-month pilot program launched last month called the Field Integrated Response Support Team, or FIRST. The initiative, which is limited to the downtown area, pairs a police officer, a behavioral health clinician and a paramedic to respond to the most urgent mental health crises before they spin out of control.<\/p>\n
The unit is meant to be more nimble, effective and cost-efficient than the existing mental health response teams at the Police Department and Integral Care, with a goal of arriving on the scene before traditional first responders.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s all about getting the right resource to a person in need of care as quickly as possible,\u201d said Kedra Priest, the practice administrator of crisis services for Integral Care.<\/p>\n
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Local officials hope connecting people in crisis to care in a more direct and proactive way will cut costs by reducing hospitalizations and arrests. They also hope the initiative will help prevent fatal use-of-force incidents by police officers, some of whom have been prosecuted <\/a>in recent years over the shooting deaths of people who were in the grips <\/a>of mental health crises.<\/p>\n FIRST\u2019s launch comes as the number of high-priority mental health calls in Austin \u2014 incidents that often involve the risk of self-harm or violence \u2014 have lingered well above pre-pandemic levels. Those types of calls surged during COVID-19 and have declined some since then but remain notably higher than they were pre-2020.\u00a0<\/p>\n With the increased call volume, average response times to the most serious calls have grown exponentially \u201499% since 2014, according to an American-Statesman analysis of 911 call data.<\/p>\n Similar units have proven successful in large metros like Dallas and Chicago, and even smaller cities<\/a> like Abilene, which have seen a drop in emergency room admissions and arrests, among other positive changes.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Whether FIRST will prove successful in Austin \u2013 and how exactly the city will go about determining that \u2013 remains to be seen. EMS Division Chief Angela Carr, who is overseeing the pilot program, said the various agencies will be tracking metrics like use-of-force incidents and hospital admissions but they have not set specific goals for what kind of changes they\u2019d like to see by the time the program ends in the spring but that the hope is they will all improve.<\/p>\n At the downtown church last month, von Seltmann and Integral Care Clinician Dawn Handley worked to assess the woman\u2019s mental state by asking questions in a calm and gentle tone. Paramedic Justin Chandler waited just outside the bathroom in case the woman needed emergency medical treatment.\u00a0<\/p>\n Read More: Austin City Council to consider ordering study of response to mental health crisis calls<\/a><\/p>\n After determining the woman did not have the mental capacity to accept or refuse care, the team decided to sedate her before transferring her to a facility where she could receive more robust treatment.\u00a0Before administering the medication, Chandler recalled the woman asking if she would still feel mentally unwell after it wore off.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n \u201cThat tells you a lot,\u201d Chandler said. \u201cShe wanted treatment, but she wasn\u2019t in the mental state to find it. But we were able to use some of the trust we had built up with the patient to get her there.\u201d<\/p>\n Austin-Travis County EMS paramedic Justin Chandler gathers medical supplies in a downtown public safety substation before going out with a pilot mental health emergency response program called Austin First on Thursday, Oct. 23, 2025.<\/p>\n Jay Janner\/Austin American-Statesman<\/p>\n \u201cEvery second counts\u201d<\/p>\n Cities across the nation have experienced an increase in the number of mental health incidents requiring an emergency response, according to a 2023 survey of mayors and Austin is no exception. A Statesman analysis of Austin 911 call data shows a 269% increase in mental health calls of all types and severities between 2014 and 2024.\u00a0<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n During that same decade, the average response time increased by 180%, to 53 minutes and 27 seconds. For the most urgent calls \u2014 the kind that FIRST is designed to address \u2014 response time increased by 99% to about 16 minutes.<\/p>\n Austin officials have taken steps in recent years to improve response to mental health emergencies, notably by adding a fourth <\/a>\u201cmental health\u201d option to the 911 call system in 2021, a change that could have contributed to a spike in mental health-related calls in 2021.\u00a0<\/p>\n Another approach has been investing in mental health emergency response units, like the Expanded Mobile Crisis Outreach Team. EMCOT, launched in 2013, pairs an Integral Care clinician with police officers responding to mental health emergencies where a law has been broken or someone is facing risk of harm.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n But that team isn\u2019t deployed until a different first responder requests its assistance. That can create a lag that delays psychiatric care for people who may be in dire need of support.<\/p>\n The FIRST unit \u2014 staffed with a police officer, a licensed social worker and a paramedic \u2014 is designed to be more proactive.<\/p>\n The unit does not wait for 911 dispatchers to assign them to mental health calls, instead actively scanning the dispatch system for calls it can jump on.<\/p>\n When a suitable incident arises, the FIRST unit can respond quickly with each member wielding their specialized skill set to successfully address the mental health emergency at hand. The officer can secure the scene for safety, the social worker can assess the patient\u2019s psychiatric needs and the paramedic can administer any necessary medical treatments.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Chandler, the paramedic, said mental health crises are dynamic situations that can devolve rapidly. Being able to respond rapidly to such calls with a diverse team can be the difference between a mental health emergency that ends tragically and one that ends with the patient receiving the care they need, he said.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen someone is in a crisis, every second counts,\u201d Chandler said.<\/p>\n Integral Care Clinician Christopher Moore, left to right, Austin-Travis County EMS paramedic Justin Chandler and Austin police officer Jaime von Seltmann leave a downtown public safety substation to work as a pilot mental health emergency response program called Austin First on Thursday, Oct. 23, 2025.<\/p>\n Jay Janner\/Austin American-Statesman<\/p>\n An alternative approach<\/p>\n B. J. Wagner, executive vice president of health and public safety at the Meadows Mental Health Policy Institute, said local governments across the country have launched mental health \u201cco-response\u201d teams like FIRST over the past decade as officials increasingly realize that safe and effective responses to mental health emergencies often require more than just policing skills.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Cities like Chicago and Fontana in California have all experimented with similar units, Wagner said, along with Texas cities<\/a> like Dallas, San Antonio and Galveston. In 2018, Wagner helped Dallas launch their own initiative, known as the Rapid Integrated Group Healthcare Team, or RIGHT Care.<\/p>\n Like Austin\u2019s FIRST unit, RIGHT Care teams include a police officer, a social worker and a paramedic. Two years after launch, data presented to a Dallas City Council committee showed\u00a0<\/p>\n Emergency room admissions had dropped by more than 30% in the ZIP codes where the unit was deployed. While arrests increased citywide during that time period, the increase was notably smaller in areas where the RIGHT team had operated.\u00a0<\/p>\n In 2020, Dallas officials expanded the program to cover the entire city. \u00a0Tabitha Castillo, a spokesperson for the city\u2019s Emergency Management and Crisis Response, shared 2024 data that shows the positive improvements have continued\u00a0<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Between 2020 and 2024, arrests dropped by more than 20% while the average time emergency responders spend on-scene at mental health calls has fallen to about 1 hour and 24 minutes from the previous average of two hours. In Austin, the average on-scene time in 2024 was about one hour and 57 minutes.\u00a0<\/p>\n Wagner said Austin has the opportunity to see similar results with FIRST, but she encouraged local officials to \u201cthink outside the box\u201d in terms of what performance metrics they should measure.<\/p>\n \u201cEverybody can reduce response times, jail bookings and hospital admissions,\u201d Wagner said. \u201cBut reducing use-of-force instances, repeat 911 calls and improving the quality of life of people being treated and for the people providing care is also important.\u201d<\/p>\n The Austin pilot<\/p>\n Carr, the EMS division chief, said the agencies will track a dozen different metrics during the six-month pilot, including use-of-force incidents, hospital admissions, emergency detentions, and the amount of time first responders spend on the scene of mental health calls.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n What amount of change are they hoping to see?\u00a0<\/p>\n Carr said the agencies haven\u2019t set exact numbers but the hope is that each metric will see a decline. Agency leaders will present Austin City Council with data on program performance after the pilot concludes.\u00a0<\/p>\n The council will then have to decide whether to continue or expand the program. Carr said continuation is the plan but it would require new funding. (For the pilot, the three city agencies reassigned existing personnel and equipment so no new money was required.) That could prove difficult amid the city\u2019s budget crunch but the program also could carry significant cost savings over time.\u00a0<\/p>\n Read More: Following Prop Q’s collapse, Austin City Council slashes $95 million from budget<\/a><\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Exactly how much is unclear but a 2020 study conducted by Integral Care offers some insight into the potential.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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