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Weekly roundup
This Week in Co-Response and Opioid Response
This week, communities are backing crisis response with money and data, from Beaver Dam's co-responder program hitting an 89 percent diversion rate as the county pushes for permanent funding, to a new CPSE-backed guide on structuring co-responder programs, while Fayetteville and Peach County both put six figures toward the opioid crisis, one into frontline recovery nonprofits amid rising overdose deaths, the other into overdose-response training for over 200 first responders.
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Co-Response
Drawing on new Center for Public Safety Excellence research, the article lays out four considerations for local governments building co-responder programs that pair firefighters with behavioral health professionals — covering the community needs they address, how they're structured and staffed, how they're funded, and how data shapes their growth.\
Since launching in October 2025, Beaver Dam's co-responder program pairing police with a Dodge County behavioral health professional has made 174 contacts and achieved an 89 percent diversion rate from emergency detention, prompting the county to seek permanent funding in its 2027 budget.
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Let’s image a 34 year old army veteran named Marcus.
Marcus calls 911 on the weekend at 2 a.m., agitated and disoriented. The officers who respond don't know he has PTSD. They don't know he's been seeing a VA behavioral health counsellor for six months. They don't even know he stopped taking his medication three days ago.
That information lives in a system they can't access. So Marcus ends up in handcuffs. Then a cell. Then a courtroom.
And his counsellors only find out on Monday morning...
This is what happens when the people trying to help can't talk to each other.
With Julota, Marcus's care team can see what they need to see, when they need to see it. The next time he calls at 2 a.m., the responding officer knows. The co-responder knows. And instead of a cell, Marcus gets a callback from his counsellor by morning.
Same person. Same call. Completely different outcome.
That's one of the abilities Julota gives your program.
Funding
The city of Fayetteville is directing more than $100,000 to local frontline organizations to help address the ongoing opioid crisis, including Myrover-Reese Recovery Homes, a nonprofit that provides residential recovery services, case management, and help accessing benefits, health care, and mental health services.
According to the North Carolina Division of Public Health, an estimated eight people a day were suspected to have died from a drug overdose statewide in 2025, and Cumberland County lost 134 people to overdose in 2024, roughly one death every two to three days.
Greg Berry of the Cumberland-Fayetteville Opioid Response Team (C-FORT) said xylazine is compounding the crisis alongside fentanyl, causing wounds that lead to serious health complications; C-FORT data shows opioid overdose emergency visits dropped 60 percent in May, from 70 last year to 28 this year, though fentanyl-related deaths in April were unchanged from a year earlier.
Myrover-Reese, which has 24 staff and 18 residents, says the funding supports staff, peer support specialists, transportation to appointments, and facility costs, while C-FORT points to peer support, people with lived experience helping others in recovery, as one of the most powerful tools in the fight.
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Funding
Peach County commissioners approved more than $100,000 in opioid settlement funds to train over 200 law enforcement officers, firefighters, and jail staff countywide on recognizing and responding to opioid overdoses.
Sheriff Robert "Buck" Shannon said basic Narcan training is no longer enough, noting deputies are often first on scene, even before EMS, and every patrol car in the county already carries Narcan.
The funding, drawn from national lawsuits against opioid manufacturers and distributors, pays for a four-hour online course through the University of North Georgia covering opioid identification, overdose recognition, de-escalation, and intervention protocols.
All three law enforcement agencies in the county, the Peach County Sheriff's Office, Fort Valley Police Department, and Byron Police Department, will participate, alongside county fire departments.
