Crisis Response Team (CRT)
The Crisis Response Team (CRT) is a collaborative effort between the Aurora Police Department and UCHealth. Our mission is to provide trauma-informed, compassionate care to individuals experiencing a mental health crisis. Our crisis clinicians and case managers act as a liaison between front-line police work and the community. The officers on our team are CIT (Crisis Intervention Team) trained and are skilled in effectively de-escalating situations involving a person experiencing a mental health crisis.
The Crisis Response Team works Monday through Saturday from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m.
When to Request CRT
Call 911 and request a CRT Response when:
- A person is making suicidal or homicidal statements.
- A person is experiencing psychosis or is acting out of character, beyond behavioral lashing out.
Services Provided
- Immediate crisis mitigation
- Care coordination between agencies
- Assisting individuals in crisis navigate the behavioral health system
- Initiate involuntary mental health hold (M1)
- Connect individuals to a Crisis Walk-in-Center or Detox facilities
What to Expect with a CRT Response
- A mental health professional will arrive on scene with a CIT trained uniformed officer, unless a mental health professional is unavailable
- A mental health professional and CIT Officer will perform an assessment of the client, as well as gather additional information from other involved individuals
- A mental health professional and CIT Officer will determine if the client meets criteria for a 27-65 mental health hold based on all information obtained during the assessment process
Goals of the CRT
- Mitigate crises
- Provide appropriate level of care
- Perform suicide/risk assessments
- Provide and connect people to local resources
- CRT attempts to reduce:
- Violence
- Law enforcement formal actions
- System stress by high utilizers
Helpful Resources:
Targeted Violence Prevention (TVP)
The Targeted Violence Prevention (TVP) Program is a threat assessment and management initiative used to identify behaviors exhibited by a person suffering from a mental illness or mental health crisis, which are indicative of being on a pathway to future act(s) of targeted mass violence. The TVP is housed within the Aurora Police Crisis Response Team. The TVP includes tailored intervention strategies designed to assess, intervene, and manage the identified behaviors and provide resources and countermeasures in order to divert the person while managing the causative factors of the identified behaviors.
Contact Immediately if:
- Someone is showing an increased interest or attraction to an extremist organization.
- A person makes homicidal statements or talks of plans to conduct a mass attack, violent hate crime or act of terrorism
Additional TVP Resources:
To request a training on targeted violence and terrorism prevention from the Aurora Police Department's Targeted Violence Prevention Team, contact the team at [email protected].
This project is partially funded by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's Center for Prevention Programs and Partnerships, opportunity number DHS-22-TTP-132-00-01.