The Cookeville City Council Thursday will consider continuing a pilot program that helps provide services for people in crisis who might otherwise end up in jail.
Cookeville Community Response began in September 2024 as a two-person team through the Cookeville Fire Department including Erika Campbell, a mental health clinician at Volunteer Behavioral Health, and Frankie Barron, an EMT.
“We can respond to any mental health calls, welfare calls, disturbances, nonviolent calls,” Campbell said. “We have our own number that they can call specifically to request us, and it goes through non-emergency through Cookeville Police.
“We’ve worked with some community resources where if we’ve gotten calls on individuals that are homeless, we’ve been able to access, they’ve had respite beds that we can use, at least for a short period of time,” Campbell said. “I’m employed by Volunteer, there are program over there, if the individual meets the requirements for those services, we can take them there.”
Cookeville Fire Chief Benton Young said, “The police officers have limited couple choices. They either got to take these people to jail or to the hospital. It overloads both those systems. It ties those officers up for unknown amount of time, where they don’t have that time available. They (Campbell and Barron) can go on these calls, respond to them. They have the time they can spend with them, see what they need, where they need to go.”
Campbell and Barron have a 15-passenger van they can use to take people where they need to go, whether it’s the hospital or another community resource, and as an EMT, Barron can check to make sure they’re medically OK.
Since they began their work in late 2024, Campbell and Barron have responded to more than 400 calls. The duo works 3-11 p.m., Monday-Friday, previously determined to be the most-needed time.
The program had been funded by a grant through a NAMI or National Alliance on Mental Illness, but now that grant is set to expire, according to Cookeville City Manager James Mills
“To date, we’ve not had any expense in this,” Mills said. “The grant covered everything, but the grant does run out March 31 … we believe this is a very valuable program that has benefited dozens and dozens of people in crisis.”
On Thursday, the city council will consider a memorandum of understanding with Volunteer Behavioral Health and funding the program through the end of the fiscal year.
“That means we’ll have to pick up the cost for the EMT position for the remainder of this fiscal year, which I estimate to be about $14,000,” he said. “We’d also be responsible for operation of this through maintenance of the van, gas, so forth for the rest of this fiscal year.”
Mills said that if the city council, during the budgeting process, agrees to continue the program, then Volunteer Behavioral Health will continue to provide the position “for the foreseeable future.”
Cookeville Police Chief Scott Winfree said he also supports the program.
“The clinician, the EMT, they also do followup,” he said. “That is very important because where in the past, we might deal with someone, and then two or three days later, we deal with them again and deal with them again. What I’ve seen is a reduction of the amount of times we have to continually see the same person, and I believe it’s helping significantly on our end.”
Mills said, “It allows our police officers to do police work, which you know, as we grow as a city, there’s more of that.”
Young, who noted that he didn’t know of any other similar programs in Tennessee, said “If anything, this might expand in the future as the city grows.”
The council will consider funding the program through the end of this fiscal year when they meet at 5:30 p.m. Thursday at Cookeville City Hall at 45 E. Broad St.