Winston-Salem’s police-free mental-health team is expanding

Winston-Salem’s mental health response team has been receiving a lot of calls — more than 3,000 of them — since May 2023.

The team, called the Behavioral Evaluation and Response Team, or BEAR, is unlike other mental-health response teams because they respond to calls without police to help people experiencing non-violent mental health crises. Crisis counselors can offer immediate help and follow up with patients.

And due to the regularity of calls, the team will be expanding this month.

Per a city council vote on Monday, the team will be hiring four additional counselors this month through the help of a $700,000 grant, bringing the team up to 10 counselors plus Team Director Krisin Ryan. The city will outfit the new hires with vehicles purchased with BEAR’s current funding. 

Thus far, the team has been almost entirely funded by grant money — a move that concerns local activists who worry that once the grant money runs out, the team will disappear with it.

In recent weeks, the model, which does not use police, has come under fire from local activists who say that 911 operators aren’t always obeying the wishes of people who call requesting BEAR, and sending police to the scene instead.

“BEAR was advertised to us as ‘you can request them,’ but if the system is still being put in place to have the cops come out to evaluate and then send BEAR, that’s not an alternative response,” OIivia Doyle, an activist with Hate Out Of Winston, said at a call for action outside city hall last month.

While other teams like Greensboro’s Behavioral Health Response Team works in tandem with police and only operates during limited weekday hours, Winston-Salem’s BEAR team works 24/7 to provide this service.

To increase the team’s visibility, Ryan explained at a September city council committee meeting that the team has been working on outreach and making sure the community knows that the service is available. She said they’ve focused on encouraging people to use their direct line —  (336) 705-3668 — rather than going through the 911 system. While calling 911 gets people connected with an operator who can then connect them with the team, calling BEAR’s direct line takes the middleman out.

“We’ve kind of changed the culture by adding an additional resource,” Ryan said.

Currently, the ratio between direct calls and calls filtered to them through the 911 system is split about 50/50, according to Ryan. The team’s response time is about 17 minutes.

“The more the community is aware and comfortable with calling us directly, probably those numbers will change,” Ryan said. 

How does it work?

Ryan explained that often, police officers reach out to the BEAR team after responding to a call and identifying a person that needs mental-health assistance.

Ryan said police call for BEAR “very regularly” while they’re on scene.

“As soon as we arrive, they leave,” she said.

Ryan added that the team also goes out to homeless encampments to offer help to people who may be struggling with their mental health. The team works with Wake Forest Baptist Hospital where unhoused people will sometimes go to spend the night, and the hospital will connect them with BEAR. The team has helped people connect with treatment programs, and have also helped relocate individuals back to their families or to treatment programs. 

“We’ve had family members that didn’t know where those individuals were,” Ryan said.

When BEAR was first starting up, the community “had a lot of input,” Southwest Ward Councilmember Kevin Mundy noted during the committee meeting last month.

Since BEAR has been in action for more than a year, Mundy suggested revisiting holding community meetings to allow residents to share their thoughts on how the model is working. 

“I think it would be a good idea to revisit that meeting to get feedback now from the community,” he said. “How are we doing? What are we doing right? What do we need to change? What do we need to start doing that we haven’t?”

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