MADISON, Wis. — Public Health Madison & Dane County on Tuesday released a one-year report on the Madison CARES program that serves as an alternative response to police when responding to mental or behavioral health calls.
The Community Alternative Response Emergency Services program launched in September 2021 with one team focused on the downtown Madison area. In July, the program grew, adding another team and expanding service to the city’s west and south sides.
“I think for the first year, you know, I feel like CARES has really been a success,” said Madison Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway. “It’s really taking a patient-centered approach and helping people to de-escalate and connect to the resources that they need.”
In the program’s first year, CARES teams responded to 935 calls and made contact with 724 people as a result. That’s still only 60% of calls dispatchers would have liked to send them to.
“It has been working so well that the demand is higher than our capacity to fill that demand,” Madison Fire Chief Chris Carbon said.
On average, CARES responses lasted about an hour. Carbon said this extended time is good for patients but makes it difficult for CARES teams to meet the demand.
“One of the benefits of the program is also one of the challenges in that these calls are complicated requests for service and our care providers are truly engaged with the patients,” he said.
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CARES teams referred patients to other services in about one in four cases and referred only 3% of cases to the city’s police department.
“It means that we’re dispatching the right calls to CARES,” said Rhodes-Conway. “What we’re looking for here is not just the sort of immediate intervention in the moment, but also long-term connection to services and healing.”
Right now, the two CARES teams are only available from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. on weekdays, but Rhodes-Conway said she’s planning to expand the program in the new year by adding weekend shifts and a third CARES team next fall.
The city will hold a virtual public meeting on Dec. 7 to gather community feedback on the program.
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