Chosen vendor for behavioral crisis response

The City selected Canopy Mental Health & Consulting as the response team. Canopy started their business in January 2020. It is a majority Black-owned business. Canopy provides person-centered care to diverse communities in the Twin Cities.

We used a rigorous process to define the services needed. We sought community-based providers best suited to provide those services.

When BCR provides transportation

Voluntary transportation

Responders provide voluntary transportation to those that ask. It's important that clients can get to a place that they feel is safe. The responders will not provide involuntary transportation under any circumstances.

Emergency transportation

If there is a need for an emergency transport, BCR will call EMS services and/or police to provide it.

Transportation holds

BCR supervisors can write transport holds if a patient is assessed to be at imminent risk of harm to self or others.

Response to crisis calls before 2021

Historically

In the past, we depended on the following departments to respond to crisis calls:

• Minneapolis Police Department
• Minneapolis Fire Department and Emergency Medical Services

2018

City leaders created a working group to explore alternative responses to 911 calls. Since 2018, Performance Management and Innovation has led the City in this transition.

2020

• Performance Management and Innovation began a community-centered review of alternatives to police response.
• The City Council approved several recommendations.
  See Transforming Community Safety and Engagement Plan
• Plan goals:
• To provide the right resources to residents at the right time
• To leverage existing City resources
• To use community resources

2021

We seek existing community providers to partner with on this work:

• We may test multiple options, including
• Partnering licensed behavioral health providers with emergency medical services and emergency medical technicians
• Partnering with violence prevention community navigators
• We will use a competitive request for proposal (RFP) process to find and evaluate the best service providers.
• We want to ensure an equitable process. To do this, we’re asking providers for advice on inclusive procurement practices.