About
CARES Background
This mission of the CARES program is to prevent crises and deflect community members from the criminal justice system, emergency medical care, or other 911 services by assisting with connection to community resources.
CARES aims to reduce unnecessary emergency service utilization and improve public health outcomes by providing non-emergency outreach, case coordination, and referrals to appropriate medical, behavioral health, and social services.
CARES also works on a systemic level to improve the local mental health crisis response system and advocate for positive change and stigma reduction in relation to mental health and substance use disorders.
CARES coordinates the Kosciusko County CIT (Crisis Intervention Team) program in collaboration with NAMI Indiana (National Alliance on Mental Illness) and local community stakeholders. The goal of CIT is to enhance the crisis response system in the City of Warsaw, ensuring that each member of the community can count on a person-centered, individualized, and trauma-informed response to mental health situations for themselves and/or their loved ones, prioritizing the safety of all involved.
CARES also offers free QPR Suicide Prevention Training and Naloxone Administration training.
Community Goals
- Reduction in EMS and Fire Department personnel responding to calls due to mental health reasons or lack of resources
- Reduction in Emergency Department Use for situations that are not a physical health emergency
- Reduction in inpatient psychiatric hospitalizations and usage of the least restrictive intervention possible
- Reduction in overdose deaths
- Increase in substance use services utilized
- Increased diversion from the criminal justice system to rehabilitating services
- Increased use of behavioral health services
- Increased access to behavioral health services in historically underserved populations
- Decreased use of law enforcement to address behavioral health needs
- Reduction in suicide attempts and death
- Decrease the amount of time from a crisis occurring to intake into services
- Decrease community members being “passed around” when in need of services