{"id":16699,"date":"2025-08-22T18:38:09","date_gmt":"2025-08-22T18:38:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/16699\/"},"modified":"2025-08-22T18:38:09","modified_gmt":"2025-08-22T18:38:09","slug":"whistleblower-says-chicagos-mental-health-crisis-response-program-has-been-failing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/16699\/","title":{"rendered":"Whistleblower says Chicago&#8217;s mental health crisis response program has been failing"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Programs that send mental health teams in response 911 calls have proved successful in over cities \u2014 so why aren&#8217;t they flourishing <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/chicago\/news\/chicago-crisis-response-team-sees-early-success-responding-to-mental-health-calls\/\" target=\"_blank\" data-invalid-url-rewritten-http=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">in Chicago<\/a>?<\/p>\n<p>Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson touted a plan for\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/chicago\/news\/care-program-mental-health-response-team-expansion\/\" target=\"_blank\" data-invalid-url-rewritten-http=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Chicago&#8217;s program<\/a> during his campaign. But in an exclusive interview, a whistleblower said the mental health crews want to work \u2014 but are being held back from helping people by limited hours and red tape.<\/p>\n<p>On a bridge over the Stevenson Expressway on Wednesday, a man needed help, as his leg was over a ledge as traffic flowed on the expressway near 25th Street and Michigan Avenue. Police talked him off the ledge and may have saved his life around 8 p.m. Wednesday.<\/p>\n<p>The Chicago Police Department was there. CARE, the city&#8217;s Crisis Assistance Response and Engagement program that tasks mental health professionals with responding to 911 calls, was not there.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It is you, the general Chicagoan, who deserves to know what is happening with the CARE team \u2014 the program that has been lauded by the Mayor&#8217;s office that has been so looked forward to for so many years and has so much potential,&#8221; said a whistleblower. &#8220;It&#8217;s important for you to know that that potential is not being reached.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The whistleblower, who has worked with CARE, had their identity concealed. They explained why the program championed by the Johnson administration has been failing.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Working in a new response team that is only available from 10:30 [a.m.] to 4 [p.m.], only available Monday to Friday \u2014 that&#8217;s a complicated thing to remember to keep track of,&#8221; said the whistleblower, &#8220;and only available in parts of the city.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>In addition to the limited hours, CBS News Chicago is told the CARE program only responds in seven of the city&#8217;s 22 police districts:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Central (1st), which includes the Loop, the South Loop, the Near South Side, and parts of the West Loop.<\/li>\n<li>South Chicago (4th), which parts of the South and Southeast sides from the southern part of South Shore to Hegewisch.<\/li>\n<li>Gresham (6th), which includes the Auburn Gresham and Chatham communities<\/li>\n<li>Englewood (7th), which includes the Englewood and West Englewood communities.<\/li>\n<li>Chicago Lawn (8th), which includes much of the Southwest Side.<\/li>\n<li>Near West (12th), which includes the Near West Side and much of the West Loop and West Town.<\/li>\n<li>Town Hall (19th), which includes the communities of Lakeview, Lincoln Square, North Center, and parts of Uptown and Lincoln Park.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Previously, CARE reams were able to self-dispatch, meaning they could listen to the scanner and respond themselves.<\/p>\n<p>Jason Lerner, director of the University of Chicago Health Lab, studied the program in its pilot form. He said self-dispatch made up about half of the calls to which CARE responded.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Self-dispatch were by far the highest percentage of dispatches,&#8221; said Lerner. &#8220;It worked effectively then.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>But without self-dispatch as an option now, CBS News Chicago is told CARE waits for 911 operators from the Office of Emergency Management and Communications to tell them where to go.<\/p>\n<p>The whistleblower said this just makes CARE teams&#8217; jobs more difficult.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Now, the CARE team is never dispatched to calls. So in some ways, sure, it made it easier, because they have nothing to do \u2014 and there&#8217;s only been 12 calls in the last three weeks,&#8221; the whistleblower said. &#8220;But in terms of doing what the CARE team was actually meant to do, yeah, it definitely made it more difficult.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>In 2023, the Johnson administration promised to quadruple the number of CARE teams. So far, only one has been added \u2014 making five teams composed of EMTs and mental health professionals. <\/p>\n<p>Earlier this year, Mayor Johnson spoke about CARE&#8217;s successes.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The City of Chicago continues to lead the way transforming the way government shows up for people,&#8221; Mayor Johnson said on Jan. 8.<\/p>\n<p>Meantime. CBS News Chicago is told those who work with CARE, which is funded by grant money until the end of 2026, feel Chicago has not been showing up for them.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;That the program is being set up to fail in a way that these obstacles are being put in place so that when it comes to 2026, someone can say: &#8216;Well, this didn&#8217;t work. Let&#8217;s use this money in a different way,'&#8221; the whistleblower said.<\/p>\n<p>At a news conference 2024, the city gave out a booklet that among other things, discussed the hours and planned improvements for CARE. CBS News Chicago is told that many of the plans outlined in the booklet have not happened.<\/p>\n<p>There had been no response from the Mayor&#8217;s office as of Thursday night. For the purpose of clarification, CBS News Chicago had reached out to the mayor&#8217;s office via email and text at 7:04 p.m. in advance of a 10 p.m. newscast.<\/p>\n<p>\n        More from CBS News\n      <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Programs that send mental health teams in response 911 calls have proved successful in over cities \u2014 so&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":16700,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[276],"tags":[15090,10167,18,135,19,17,167,502],"class_list":{"0":"post-16699","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mental-health","8":"tag-brandon-johnson","9":"tag-chicago","10":"tag-eire","11":"tag-health","12":"tag-ie","13":"tag-ireland","14":"tag-mental-health","15":"tag-mentalhealth"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16699","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16699"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16699\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16700"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16699"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16699"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16699"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}