ARCH Aims to Serve Those in Crisis

An innovative collaboration between Mary Greeley Medical Center, Ames Police Department and Iowa State University Police is aiming to provide community members in crisis specialized mental health services.

ARCH: Alternative Response for Community Health was launched recently and will be piloted over a 6-month period. The unit is staffed by professionals trained in mental health and crisis stabilization.

“ARCH is looking to provide a more specialized approach to 911 calls that don't fit the criteria for a police or EMS response,” says Nick Toornstra, Paramedic at Mary Greeley Medical Center. Toornstra is the ARCH lead at Mary Greeley. “The response for ARCH begins with that 911 call. The dispatch center runs the call through their regular line of questioning and from there notifies the ARCH team if appropriate.”

When an ARCH call is triggered, the 911 call center will perform additional screening for safety reasons to eliminate any potential threat to staff, and then dispatch a social worker and an EMT or Paramedic.

ARCH provides an immediate response to these calls—in most cases within as little as 5 to 10 minutes—helping to connect individuals with additional resources in the community, potentially reducing arrests and unnecessary Emergency Room visits. The service is available across Ames, to include the Iowa State University campus, and designed to address a variety of issues ranging from a mental health crisis to homelessness, food insecurity and more.

The two-person team responds in a specialized vehicle equipped to provide care onsite, where the caller is located. The vehicle includes basic first-aid supplies for treating minor medical needs, as well as water, food, and other resources. The vehicle also provides safe shelter and transport to the resources that are deemed necessary, including places like a drop-in shelter, food pantry, domestic violence resource, outpatient mental health facility, urgent care or other non-Emergency Room and non-police facilities. Funds to purchase and oufit the vehicle were provided by the Mary Greeley Foundation.

“This is truly a collaborative service and that includes the involvement of the Foundation,” Toornstra says. “When we brought this to them to request funding, they saw our vision for better serving our community. It just shows how support for the Foundation is having a real impact on the health and wellness of our community.”

At its core, the program is focused on ensuring the appropriate types of services are available to be delivered by the appropriate professionals.

“We look at it as kind of the old model of care, where the doctor used to go to people's houses and visit them and take care of their needs, or the home health nurse model where someone would go to a person's house and evaluate their medical needs,” says Commander Jason Tuttle of the Ames Police Department. “This is no different. We feel like this is a great resource for those in our community who could be struggling.”

“The vast majority of our mental health cases, people are just looking for resources,” adds Michael Newton, PhD, Chief of Police at Iowa State University. “They need help. This will just add one piece that hopefully will make a difference.”