PHOENIX — The Phoenix Fire Department’s Community Assistance Program has been around since 1995, primarily serving as a resource in crisis response. They arrive on the scene of car crashes and fires with other first responders.
“After a fire or major incident our team remains on scene with the individuals involved in the traumatic event,” said program administrator Dolores Ernst. “While fire and police response times are limited, we can spend hours with someone.”
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In 2021, Phoenix City Council approved $15 million to expand the program.
“We’re going from five crisis response teams to 10 and from no behavioral health units to nine,” Ernst said.
But over two years later, the program is still under 60% of its ideal staffing numbers — 74 positions have been filled of 130 total. There are four behavioral health units now, still shy of the goal of nine.
“We’re still ramping up our teams,” Ernst said. “We’re averaging around 100 to 120 calls per month.”
Those calls are ones that in the past would be handled by firefighters or police officers.
The hope is that as CAP staffing increases, even more calls can be diverted to community assistance teams to save fire and police resources.
“Ultimately the goal is [to] get the right resources at the right time to the individuals, so having this alternative response model allows us to be able to respond to people appropriately,” Ernst said.
The Community Assistance Program also relies on volunteers and interns, even partnering with Arizona State University to employ five social work interns.
On Thursday, there is a volunteer information session for anyone interested in joining the team.
