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Donut, a four-month-old black Labrador, has joined the Thornton Police Department's co-responder unit in Colorado, where he will be trained to provide emotional support and comfort to people experiencing mental health crises, working alongside an officer and a clinician on crisis response calls.

Military co-responders working with the East of England Ambulance Service NHS Trust logged over 5,100 volunteer hours last year, assisted more than 2,300 patients, and arrived first on scene at 89% of emergencies attended — with over 400 patients helped without any need for an ambulance to be dispatched

Baltimore's 911 Diversion Program, launched in June 2021, allows dispatchers to redirect certain emergency calls to mental health or behavioral health professionals rather than police officers, and a new $1 million federal grant will help expand its reach. The funding will enable dispatchers to deploy counselors, social workers, and resources for drug abuse-related calls, with city officials describing it as a step toward ensuring every 911 call receives the most appropriate, not just the most available, response.

The grant comes in the wake of incidents like a January shooting of a woman experiencing a mental health crisis, which advocates say highlights the need for alternatives to police-only responses. Mayor Brandon Scott expressed hope that Baltimore's model could serve as a national example, including for surrounding counties that have faced similar challenges with police-involved mental health incidents.

The Worcester City Council postponed a request for information about how its police and emergency communications departments handle mental health emergencies, after three mental health organizations sued the city alleging its 911 system violates federal law, including the Americans with Disabilities Act, by defaulting to armed police responses for behavioral health crises. The vote was delayed to allow for a broader conversation, with Council Vice Chair Khrystian King emphasizing that research supports a differential approach involving social workers, which leads to better outcomes than police-only responses.

King also flagged that nine council orders, many related to deploying social or clinical workers alongside emergency responders, have gone without updates from city administrations dating back as far as 2019. Worcester previously ran a pilot crisis response program pairing mental health workers with police from July 2023 through fall 2024, but that program has since ended, leaving the city without a direct 911 dispatch pathway to behavioral health responders.