MHRAC QI Subcommittee Meeting

The Settlement Agreement between Cleveland and the Department of Justice required that a MHRAC be developed by the City and the Cleveland Division of Police (CDP).

The MHRAC is charged with:
- fostering relationships b/w the police, community, & mental health providers
- identifying problems & developing solutions to improve crisis outcomes
- providing guidance to improving the CDP Crisis Intervention Program and…

• conducting a yearly analysis of incidents to determine if the CPD has enough specialized CIT officers, if they are deployed effectively and responding appropriately and recommending changes to policies and procedures regarding training.

For more information about the MHRAC: https://www.adamhscc.org/about-us/current-initiatives/task-forces-and-coalitions/mental-health-response-advisory-committee-mhrac

For information about today’s meeting including link to join: https://www.adamhscc.org/Home/Components/Calendar/Event/860/77

The Quality Improvement (QI) group meeting today reviews data submitted from the Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) Stat Sheets, makes recommendations on improving the quality & quantity of data collected, as well as potential changes to policy and procedures based in part on data.

Meeting got started about 8:35 AM, run by CDP Deputy Chief O’Neill. No written agenda distributed, on DC O’Neill’s verbal agenda:
- presentation on CIT data from Lutheran Metropolitan Ministry (LMM) men’s shelter downtown. Mr Blunt (sp?) scheduled to join but did not show

verbal agenda (cont’d):
- review and f/u from last meeting on Norma Herr women’s shelter data report

No update from Dr Dunn (sp?) on his report on racial disparities in handcuffing of black girls this month.

Photo of those in attendance as the meeting gets started. As far as I can tell, @ADAMHSBoardCC does not have an official roster for the QI subcommittee on its website.

Clare Rosser is not feeling well so Randolph Dupont is subbing in to help run the meeting. https://t.co/rl7l3Q2W0E

Question from Gabriella Celeste (GC) on lack of minutes and follow-up. “We’ve gotten to a place where we’re not documenting what we’re doing and that concerns me.”

GC questions:
- what is the follow up from Norma Herr and staff thinking there’s a huge undercount?
- at June meeting Dr Dunn said he would be ready to present in July, now it’s August and it’s not here
- still waiting on CIT policies update

DC O’Neill (DCO) apologizes for not sending out minutes, states this is first month we haven’t had them.

Also states that CIT policies went to the monitor and DOJ, law dept had to review, DOJ had feedback so made changes and sent again, now waiting on DOJ

Regarding undercount at Norma Herr, Rodney Thomas (RT) states that CDP is starting to drill down, possible some calls for service that staff expected would be CIT were not recorded as CIT by officers on the back end - in ongoing dialogue with providers

These discrepancies in how CIT calls are recorded by police officers is a major theme of the meeting. In data from men’s homeless shelter, only about 30% of calls are categorized as involving homeless individuals.

CDP states a divisional notice was sent out to officers to clarify when someone should be counted as homeless.

Randolph Dupont responds to questions about Dr Dunn’s report on handcuffing Black girls. Dupont has seen a draft report, data has been collected and report being finalized.

On whether report will be ready for Sept, hesitant to commit bc others need to review first.

GC states she hopes the QI committee will also have a chance to review and give input. We had suggestions for how to address low sample size in comparing White girls being handcuffed, for example.

RD: Since MHRAC volunteers are not being paid for their time, it is hard to hold timelines.

Rosie Palfy (RP) raises issue of CDP cancelling and rescheduling meetings w/o notice, not sharing information - public can request body cam footage but we haven’t seen any in 7 years, CIT data in mid-year budget report never shared with us. “Total lack of respect for MHRAC.”

RP also raises that CDP was supposed to create a concise definition of homeless and MHRAC was supposed to vote to approve, despite her sharing lots of resources from HUD etc. this was never done.

Why aren’t DOJ recommendations shared with us? Just kept in the dark.

DC O’Neill responds that “there is a process” and we also have other jobs, to share all of the time we would never get anything done.

Later it comes up that there is also still not a new CIT Coordinator at CDP, which is likely part of the problem.

RP also makes the point that we need to invite community members, not just service providers, and include all stakeholders if we want to make progress.

Now CDP shares report on CIT call data from Lutheran Men’s Shelter (the main men’s shelter in downtown Cleveland.) See images for details. These reports are part of a deeper engagement w/ providers with a high number of CIT calls to CDP. https://t.co/jVrhRIoGoa

30.8% of shelter clients were identified as homeless at LMM CIT incidents. This is an ongoing discussion. https://t.co/4SvRWkKlTB

Only 2.5% of calls involved resistance.

Low rates of referrals to additional services - need to determine if referral data is not being completed in the report forms by officers, or if individuals are really not being referred. https://t.co/io7GQ4r6l5

While LMM shelter had 1,000+ calls for service to CDP in 2020 and 2021, only 120 received a CIT response even though 246 calls were explicitly mental health or suicide-related. https://t.co/pSDUeIoFwt

Question from Rosie Palfy: can we get a copy of reports, so that we can review and ask questions? Also requests copy of the DN sent out to officers about classifying individuals as homeless - in the past some uncertainty about whether ppl living in a shelter are homeless.

Gabriella C brings up higher rate of handcuff use at women’s shelter (7% vs 2.5%). DC O’Neill states in her experience women are often more violent. GC points out also a lower rate of de-escalation use at Norma Herr, perhaps specialized training exists?

DC O’Neill apologizes for Mr Blunt from LMM not appearing, she will share this report with him.

Proposals for next meeting topics?

There is a convo about police officers expressing frustration at limited options for service referrals. Rep from Frontline Services suggests greater use of diversion center rather than hospital as criteria for admission are lower and less likely to end up back on street w/o help

GC suggests having both shelter directors back & discuss next steps working w/ homeless pop. in crisis. Might have answers about undercounting by then? RT says yes they will be able to report on analysis

GC also asks if there is a new CIT Coordinator at CDP yet, answer is no

Related, Rick Oliver from Frontline asks how we can encourage officers to call crisis hotline and use diversion center. Also hoping to expand co-responder program, poss w/ homeless focused team.

Rosie Palfy pointed out that 66% of diversion center users are homeless.

RP also makes point that just bc staff like a program doesn’t mean homeless individuals are receptive to it, although I missed specifically which program she was referring to.

Also suggest future topic of use of Level 3 force in CIT calls, which is rare but does happen.

Meeting closes about 9:40 AM.

Have questions? Think we got something wrong? Send any inquiries on the meeting or these tweets to @cledocumenters or email us at cledocumenters@gmail.com