MW Health Blog

Framingham police officers and the manager of a group home were struggling with how to get through to a troubled teen whose disruptive behavior resulted in four 911 calls in two months.

Then, during a regular meeting where stakeholders involved with the department’s Jail Diversion Program discuss challenging cases, one of the officers asked the group home manager if the individual could come into the station. A few moments later the two parties – offender and officers – had a sit down.

That was all it took for the 911 calls to stop.

It was an unprecedented talk that wouldn’t have taken place in Massachusetts 10 years ago. In 2002, with Foundation support, the Framingham Police Department and the Framingham-based human services agency, Advocates, Inc., launched the first Jail Diversion Program in the state. The program, which diverts low-level offenders who suffer from a mental illness from being arrested, now serves as a model for other police departments across the state.

“It had never been done before,” said Sarah Abbott, director of the Jail Diversion Program at Advocates.
Once it was clear the Framingham program was keeping people with mental illness out of jail and hospital emergency rooms and instead referring them to treatment, other departments expressed interest in replicating the program.

“People have recognized for many years that the police are often the first to encounter people in crisis,” said Abbott.

Advocates recently partnered with the Marlborough Police Department to create a Jail Diversion Program with the help of a three-year, $201,828 grant from the Foundation.

Last year Marlborough Police recorded 365 cases that were referred to the Jail Diversion Program. Seventy-five percent of those cases were diverted from arrest to community-based mental health services.

“For starters, they’re not getting involved in the criminal justice system for low-level minor offenses,” she said.

Fifty-one people were diverted from the Marlborough Hospital emergency room and were instead evaluated in the community by a clinician. Of all the cases, 6 percent involved repeat offenders. In each instance, the individual received a referral to treatment services.

The program received 112 calls from community groups in need of support services for victims of crimes and mental health and substance abuse resources. Advocates and the Marlborough Police Department also found, through the Jail Diversion Program, that there was an increased need for intervention among the homeless and elderly.

The program works best when police are willing participants and clinicians are an integral part of the department, said Abbott. Abbott said a handful of other departments in the state have based Jail Diversion Programs on Framingham’s model, including the Watertown Police Department which launched its Jail Diversion Program in October based on the lessons learned in Framingham and Marlborough.

You might say every day is as important to Joanne Barry, executive director of Natick’s A Place to Turn, as Super Tuesday is to presidential hopefuls.

On Tuesday, residents voted but many also did something else – they brought canned food to Town Hall in Sherborn. The food drive was organized by a community student leadership program along with help from the town clerk. To read more about the drive, click here.

A Place to Turn is an emergency food and clothing pantry which provides two complete weeks of food to MetroWest families every two months. In the last fiscal year, Barry said 2,763 families (more than 8,000 people) came to the pantry for food.

In the first six months of this fiscal year, Barry said the number of people she is serving has increased 10 percent, and 20 percent of the people she’s assisting have never been to the pantry before. Barry said residents from Framingham and Natick make up about 75 percent of her clients while those from Marlborough, Milford and Wellesley are the remaining 25 percent.

Barry said many of the clients visiting the pantry are part of the middle class working population whose hours have been cut back. As a result, they take home smaller paychecks and qualify for fewer benefits. Others have gone through their savings or unemployment and are struggling to pay for food.

“Now, we’re seeing people that waited too long to access food pantries or get help,” said Barry.

When you enter A Place to Turn you find yourself in a room that resembles a country store. There’s everything from fresh produce displayed in baskets to eggs and meat plus soap and toiletries neatly stacked on shelves. Barry said the setup makes clients feel as though they are shopping for their families since they are able to choose what they want based on their individual needs.

The pantry is supported by the MetroWest community as well as area schools and other nonprofits like the MetroWest Health Foundation. Local groups also host food drives like the one held this past primary day by the Sherborn Town Clerk’s office.

As the weather gets warmer people tend to forget hunger is a year-round problem. Last August and September the food pantry had the least amount of food Barry has ever seen on the shelves. She doesn’t expect this year to be any better.

“I think it’s going to continue to increase,” Barry said. “We thought it would level off as foreclosures leveled off…but we think it’s going to increase over the next year.”

If you would like to help A Place to Turn, current items in high demand include canned chicken, beef stew, juice, white rice, dry pasta, dry and canned soups, macaroni and cheese, jelly, peanut butter, dry cereal, toilet paper, tissues and paper towels. The Pantry is located at 99 Hartford St. in Natick. They can be reached at 508-655-8868.

Building Leaders is a blog series featuring members of the Foundation's Class of 2012 Health Leadership Program. Caitlin Hurley is the Director of Youth and Community Wellness at the Hockomock Area YMCA.