Lansdale Police mental health co-responder building community ties, and quickly

In nearly a year since joining the Lansdale Police Department, the town’s first mental health co-responder has continued to make a difference.

And borough council heard an update earlier this month about how co-responder Alexis Moyer continues to help build ties between police, community members, and the agencies and groups that provide services that people may need.

“I have a little bit of a caseload of my own, of 18 individuals that I kind of check in on, if they haven’t been linked to services yet, or if they are unhoused. I have 18 people I regularly check in on and oversee, just to make sure they’re doing OK, or if they need medical access to anything,” she said.

“That’s not ‘kind of’ a caseload, that is a caseload,” Mayor Garry Herbert replied.

After the onset of COVID-19 in 2020, Lansdale police and borough council worked with area police and local nonprofits and agencies, to respond to homelessness and mental health issues caused or worsened by the pandemic. Those joint efforts grew into regular meetings of the “North Penn HUB,” a collaborative of local police departments and agencies that meet monthly to solve problems they all encounter, work that includes Merakey, the local chapter of a national nonprofit that connects those in need of services with adult behavioral health, autism, addiction recovery, veterans’ aid, aging, child and family, and other services.

In April 2023 council issued an RFP for a mental health co-responder, and that June awarded a contract to Merakey, to develop a mental health co-responder program that would respond along with police to certain types of emergency calls. That program went live in late August, then police reported in October on her early successes, and Moyer herself gave a first report to the public safety committee in February about her work thus far.

On June 5 Moyer gave another update, reporting on individual success stories, and relationships she’s helped build with local organizations to help those in need.

In recent months, she has visited St. John’s United Church of Christ to discuss the meals they provide for the hungry, and help teach “ways to de-escalate anyone who may be in crisis” during a visit there.

In April, the co-responder similarly trained four squads of Lansdale police officers on de-escalation techniques, all while continuing to refer residents to local agencies including Merakey, nonprofit food pantry Manna on Main Street, domestic violence nonprofit Laurel House, and more.

“I also work with Knapp Elementary (School), so I have five families that are kind of in limbo, waiting for services, because there’s a little bit of a wait list,” she said.

‘In the right place’

During a recent visit to Manna with a police officer, Moyer said, staff at the North Penn Commons complex reported a crisis in progress in an apartment there, and an ambulance had not yet arrived, so the two took quick action to help.

“While we were waiting for EMS to arrive, I jumped in with a bunch of questions. And, he was kind of new, in mid-September he had moved in. Long story short, it turned out that he should’ve had a whole host of supports in place, like a home health aid for 35 hours a week, and he only had one for 15, because there’s a lack of resources there,” Moyer said.

“I said ‘Hey, I’m in the right place at the right time, can I come back next week to meet with you?’ He said sure. This was five or six weeks ago, and I’ve been meeting with him weekly,” Moyer said.

And she has since helped him file a claim with an insurance company, arrange for in-house visits by a doctor, a home help aide, and other providers.

“Now he has so many people coming to his house, he’s like ‘What have you done to me?’ ” Moyer said. “I said that’s OK, we’re taking care of you.”

About relationships

Police Chief Mike Trail added that since starting in September, Moyer is now over 500 formal contacts with members of the community. The two recently met with members of Allentown City Council to discuss their program and its results so far.

“What we’re doing here is the best practices approach, to working with persons in crisis in our community. It’s effective. The model is now being validated by all of the communities that are embracing that model,” Trail said.

Police have asked council to seek continued grant funding for the position, and to possibly add a second co-responder, and the chief told council’s public safety committee that his goal is to ask council for funding in the borough’s 2026 budget to fully fund Moyer’s position as a standalone employee of the borough

“There’s some advantages to having her as an employee, and a lot of them have to do with the safety and disclosure of information,” Trail said.

“Sharing of information is the most crucial thing we find ourselves challenged by,” he said, adding that certain agencies and systems “don’t like to talk to each other sometimes. So bringing her in-house, as an employee of the police department, is going to be safer for her with access to communications, and all-around ability to share information.”

Councilman Andrew Carroll asked if the town’s success so far with the program would make grant awards more likely.

Trail and Herbert said earlier awards may make second grant awards less likely from some sources, but more likely from others, and he would keep the committee posted as the grant already secured is drawn down.

The mayor then asked what type of interaction the co-responder has most, and Moyer said “it varies, day to day,” and largely focuses on building relationships with those who are distrustful of authorities due to earlier trauma.

“One individual, I have gone out several times a week, just to have him buy in that I’m friendly, and I’m not going to hurt you. So that’s why this program works, because the police aren’t going to go out. They deal with their policing stuff. They don’t have that time to build this relationship,” Moyer said. “That relationship piece is so important to getting these people where they need to be.”

‘Grateful for her’

Councilman Michael Yetter asked if those who Moyer interacts with tend to be enrolled in certain programs like Medicare that can cover the costs of the services they need, and Moyer said that also varies, case by case.

“If they don’t have any insurance whatsoever, that’s where we can bounce them to Merakey, where we can apply (for insurance). There are so many barriers and layers, because if someone doesn’t have insurance, then we have to wait 30 days until insurance is established. They have to have an address, so if someone is unhoused and doesn’t have an insurance, where are we going to establish an address?” Moyer said.

One particularly glaring issue, she said was that since the COVID years, waitlists for certain services have increased dramatically, with wait times of up to a year for child psychiatrists to see kids in need of help.

“In the meantime, there’s all these major issues happening, and we’re just trying to deal with them. That’s the biggest issue, is our lack of resources,” she said.

Meg Currie Teoh, council vice president, said she’d keep council updated on any future grant opportunities, and was appreciative of the work Moyer had done so far, particularly for youngsters who lost entire schoolyears in classrooms due to the pandemic, and are now facing long waits for the help they need.

“A year, in the scale of a seven-year-old, that’s massive. It blew my mind. We’re grateful that she’s out there — wonderful update — and we’re grateful for her,” Teoh said.

Lansdale’s borough council next meets at 7 p.m. on June 20 and the public safety committee next meets at 6:30 p.m. on July 3, both at the borough municipal building, 1 Vine Street. For more information visit www.Lansdale.org.

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