VIDEO/PHOTOS: A team of mental health professionals will now be responding along with police and firefighters to calls of people who are in crisis in Seattle.
The Community Assisted Response and Engagement (CARE) department is adding six behavioral health specialists to the city's 911 systems.
The pilot program, which started Monday, will provide service from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. in downtown Seattle, the Chinatown-International District and SODO.
"CARE responders are dispatched by calling 9-1-1 like the City’s other emergency services," the CARE department wrote in a statement. "Trained call takers in the City’s 911 Center will decide which incidents are appropriate for this response. Calls eligible for a CARE response include low-acuity welfare checks, calls that don’t need enforcement, and others that are non-violent, non-emergent, and non-medical."