With one police truck and a team of professionals, mental health services have returned to the city of Lodi.
“Our MET is our Mobile Evaluation Team,” Lodi Police Department Sergeant Elias Ambriz said. “We go out and conduct outreach and try to provide support and services for Lodi residents facing mental health challenges.”
Sergeant Elias Ambriz is just one of the members of MET.
Once a month, he and the MET connect with people who are struggling, whether that’s with mental health or homelessness.
“Our team consists of our [Community Liaison Officer], our downtown bike officer, a dispatcher and a sergeant. We’re also teamed up with two clinicians from San Joaquin Behavioral Health Services,” he explained.
This hasn’t always been available within the city. It was once discontinued because of funding cutbacks at the county level.
Now, more people will receive the help they need.
Sergeant Ambriz said that without the county’s behavioral health services, this program wouldn’t be possible.
“It’s something that provides just another avenue for individuals who are maybe not comfortable asking for help, for us to identify them and go to them and provide them with the services they may need,” he said.
The department’s MET got back up and running just last month.
Even in this short amount of time, they’ve already had success stories in helping those in times of need.
“We were able to contact an elderly Lodi resident who was identified as somebody we should try to contact, and she was deemed to be gravely disabled,” Sergeant Ambriz explained. “With that, we were able to get her to the to a hospital and the hope is for continued support and services through behavioral health services.”
Bringing people the necessary tools to thrive, only made possible with a team effort.
“We’re not there to get them in trouble,” Ambriz said. “That’s why the San Joaquin Behavioral Health, the clinicians, really take the lead on that to form that connection with them, so that they know that we’re there to help them.”