Firefighters and social workers in Kitsap County partner to respond to behavioral health calls
POULSBO, Wash. - There are now two fire departments in Kitsap County taking a new approach to address the increasing amount of behavioral health-related calls.
The service is called the Community Assistance, Referral, and Education Service Program, known as the CARES Program.
CARES operates by pairing firefighters and social workers together when responding to behavioral health calls including a suicidal person, drug overdoses, mental health crisis and service to the elderly.
"Our requests for service, needs for service, are growing faster than our organization can keep up. So we had to come up with creative ways to make our services more efficient and at the same time provide a higher level of service to our community," said Capt. Jake Gillanders with Poulsbo Fire Department.
Washington State passed a bill in 2015 making programs like this legal. The Poulsbo Fire Department launched the CARES program in 2021, the first in Kitsap County.
"This was sort of a natural way for us to get to the root cause of the issues that were causing people to need 911 more and more frequently," said Gillanders. "Something like lack of access to medical care or lack of access to substance use disorder treatment or lack of access to mental health care. And this was just a way for us to get to the root cause of some of those problems and nip them in the bud before they became 911 issues."
CARES responds to referrals made by emergency services, school districts, social service organizations in the community. Firefighters and social workers help people dealing with behavioral and mental health challenges get connected to resources that best fit their needs.
"We’ve seen a significant decline in the folks that we work with where some of these folks we might have seen them 13, 14, 15 times over a matter of three months. Now we’re seeing them perhaps once or twice over those three-month periods. And that’s just through a single or maybe two contacts with our CARES team," said Gillanders.
Central Kitsap Fire & Rescue launched its own CARES Program in 2023. Now three months in, the team joins Poulsbo in the effort to address the growing issues surrounding behavioral health.
"I felt, as a paramedic, that I’ve been able to just put a Band-Aid on problems. And get people to the hospital and hopefully things get fixed. And then see them the next shift and then the next shift. And so being on this team we’re actually able to follow through," said Jesse Graham, Central Kitsap CARES Team firefighter and paramedic.
"In just three months, we’re getting people connected with addiction services, social services and the ability to age with grace in their own homes. And that’s an extension that Central Kitsap wants to provide to its citizens. That is the best part of this program—providing a higher level of service to our citizens," said Lieutenant Alex McCracken of Central Kitsap Fire & Rescue. "We want to be most effective in this space. And we’re finding that the social worker and the firefighter pairing is just a fantastic combination of our existing resources and seeing what the future needs of these citizens are."
Even in its early stages, the CARES team with Central Kitsap Fire & Rescue is already seeing positive results. Social worker Kloe Tran recalls one of the first cases of their program – helping a mother and daughter who both had chronic substance abuse disorders.
"I think for a while there, there was a 911 call probably weekly for one of them having either withdrawal symptoms or intoxication symptoms. And we worked with them really extensively for about three months trying to get them connected with services, getting them into detox. And the daughter—we were able to reconnect her family back in Kansas and got her into a 30-day inpatient [care] right before she left. So she went to go visit her kids sober and is doing well in Kansas now," said Tran.
"We had a citizen who had called us hundreds of times over the last several years. Finally, we created a moment where they could get connected to rehab. They were sober and they are able to connect back with their family in Kentucky and reintroduced to their children back home. To me, that was the best win this program’s ever had," said McCracken.
Cities including Bellevue, Tacoma and Spokane also have similar programs. South Kitsap Fire & Rescue is also considering a launch. As more communities in Washington and the country adopt these programs, Gillanders said he believes it will become a common service within fire departments.
"This is a way for us to address those issues in our community. And I think this is the future of fire service. I think 20 years from now, social workers in the firehouse are going to be just like paramedics were 20 years ago," said Gillanders. "This just feels like a natural evolution."