Jennifer Campbell, is the new police social worker coordinator with the Traverse City Police Department, and is working closely with the Quick Response Team (QRT), an overdose prevention and response team. Working to “address the link between substance misuse, mental health, and homelessness,” the QRT is meant to address “systemic barriers to recovery” and provide “wrap-around services for vulnerable populations in the Traverse City community,”.

The TCPD received a three-year grant for just over $200,000 through the Michigan State Police for the program. TCPD Chief Jeff O’Brien previously explained that when the department has historically responded to overdoses, there was no follow-up once officers left the scene. An individual might be hospitalized, or could face jail time if illegal drugs are involved, but they’re otherwise often on their own after an overdose. With a QRT, a social worker and health professional respond with an officer to an overdose scene and connect the victim to treatment services and support.

To date, the TCPD QRT has created memorandums of understanding with organizations including Addiction Treatment Services, CMH Jail Division, Goodwill Inn, Northern Lakes Community Mental Health, and Safe Harbor. The team has identified 15 other secondary partners for potential collaborations, created a secure software called Casebook to track QRT program participants, created marketing and referral materials for the program, and organized information for 500 Naloxone kits – which can help reverse overdoses – that Addiction Treatment Services plans to distribute.

Next goals for the QRT include reducing the number of fatal overdoses in Traverse City in 2023 and following Governor Gretchen Whitmer’s goal to reduce overdoses by half statewide. For Traverse City, that would mean having no more than 33 overdoses by 2025. The QRT also hopes to increase the use of Naloxone in local overdoses, from the current rate of being deployed in 30 percent of cases to over 50 percent.

Traverse City Ticker