With mental health disorders on the rise throughout the U.S., cities are looking for ways to respond to emergencies with the appropriate personnel. For the City of Las Cruces, that meant launching Project LIGHT, a crisis response team outfitted with behavioral health professionals as part of the fire department. For Battalion Chief Matthew Hiles, the LIGHT team represents a new chapter for first responders in the city.
“The Las Cruces Fire Department is definitely doing everything that we possible can to address every issue that we can when it comes to someone’s needs in crisis, whatever it may be. That is now truly including mental hecalth, and that is something that we never knew how to deal with, never really knew how to treat, never really got the training, never had the true professionals with us. Well now, that’s all being changed,” he said.
Project LIGHT collaborates with behavioral health organizations throughout the city, including Families and Youth Innovations Plus. Specifically, the organization acts as a facility where the LIGHT team can bring children in crisis, as they have individuals who specialize in youth mental health services. Lisa Chavez, Senior Clinical Director at FYI+, said that her organization also collaborates with LCFD by offering specialized services to the department’s social workers.
“Paramedics [are not trained] the way social workers are and vice versa. Social workers aren’t trained as paramedics," she said. "Our focus is really just to give them strong baseline training and understanding of what crisis looks like in the field, how it shows up so that they understand how psychosis shows up, drug-induced psychosis, what that could look like, and how to respond in the best way to reduce stress in the crisis to prevent any further harm to that individual.”
Chavez said that her team is also able to provide reflective support and clinical supervision to the LIGHT team.
“If any of those paramedics or social workers felt like they needed to call for some case consultation, whether they’re in the field or whether they come back after the field, and they wanted to [talk] that case out, to think about what some things that they could do differently next time, or what are some things [to] look for. That was the purpose for my integration with them,” she said.
Since March 7, the LIGHT team has responded to 141 calls. According to the Las Cruces Fire Department, around 65% of Project LIGHT interventions end with an individual being transported to a mental health provider or resolving on scene. To Battalion Chief Hiles, that in itself is a great success.
“For the longest time, for decades, this hasn’t ever been a thing in Las Cruces. We’ve always been treating mental health [as if] we’re taking a broken leg to the dermatologist. That’s not going to help. We’re now taking that leg to the orthopedic surgeon, now we’re getting some help, we’re really getting somewhere. Now we can fix it, we can start the rehab process and the rebuilding to get them back on track,” he said.
Currently, Project Light is not a 24/7 service, and with the current amount of staff, the absence of one member could suspend services completely. Chief Hiles said he would like to grow the team but isn’t sure if running 24/7 would be an effective use of the Fire Department’s resources.
“I’m not sure if we’ll ever be the 24/7 operation with Project LIGHT," he said. "Usually when calls are ran at like 3:00 in the morning with a behavioral issue or maybe suicidal ideations, there tends to be a significant amount of alcohol or drug use involved. And if that’s the case there’s really not a lot the LIGHT team can do because there’s not really any facilities that are going to be open to accept and receive them except the emergency room. So that person is going to be transported to the emergency department anyway, which the LIGHT team isn’t going to be very effective [at]. So we’re still going to figure out if there’s going to be a benefit. I’m not saying that’s always the case, but quite often it is.”
Las Cruces City Councilor Tessa Abeyta said that she’s happy with the numbers presented by the LCFD, and that getting individuals into long-term care is an essential step in solving the rising number of mental health crises in the city.
“Continued care is going to be so important, and that’s where you’re going to see a difference. When you have individuals that are high-frequency users of the system, that takes on a lot of need for service. That’s a lot of resources. So getting somebody, addressing them when they’re in the system but then [being] able to get them out is a success.”
Abeyta said that if prompted, she would be ready to turn Project Light into a 24-hour service.
“Right now, if you told us tomorrow you need a 24-hour [operation] we’d make it happen. But they’re saying wait, let’s use this data, let’s be smart, and let’s look at this in a sustainable fashion. Because we want this program to be long-lasting within our community. So we need to be smart about that,” she said.
For a region that has historically lacked behavioral health resources, stakeholders see Project LIGHT as a step in the right direction. The early numbers coming out of the program are a sign for optimism, but ultimately, more statistics are needed before making major decisions moving forward.
