Behavioral Health Unit
Substance use and mental health conditions often go hand in hand and in order to better serve our community, the decision was made to combine the Mental Health Unit (CORE) and the Substance Use Response Team (SURT) under one umbrella, called the Behavioral Health Unit.
To read more about the Behavioral Health Unit, click here.
CORE (Co-Response) Unit
The CORE Unit, previously called the Mental Health Unit, pairs licensed social workers with police officers to co-respond to 911 calls, as well as provide follow-up and outreach for mental health related incidents in Duluth. CORE was developed to address the large amount of mental health-related calls in Duluth.
At the time, officers were out of tools to help people in crisis. The emergency room was overloaded, and the jail certainly wasn’t the solution. In 2010, an officer and a homeless advocate teamed up to work together to get individuals to the right resources. After several years of continued success and connecting hundreds of individuals to resources, the program expanded to a Unit Commander, two officers, and two embedded social workers. Since March 2017, more than 1,400 people have been referred to the CORE Unit. The team continues to work with community partners to address the needs of individuals with the highest risk factors and divert them from the criminal justice when possible.
If you'd like to contact members of the CORE Unit, call:
(218)-730-5567
Substance Use Response Team (SURT)
The Substance Use Response Team (SURT) is a deflection program housed within the Duluth Police Department. SURT was created in 2018 in response to historic rises in opioid-related overdoses to provide post-overdose outreach. Deflection programs, such as SURT, are designed to divert individuals with substance use disorders away from the criminal justice system and into services that are supportive of their recovery. SURT is an entirely peer recovery-led and run outreach program that does not include police in follow-up attempts but is instead embedded within a law enforcement agency.
Currently, SURT employs two Peer Recovery Specialists that provide outreach to opioid overdose survivors, perform street outreach, accepts family and friend referrals, offers in-reach into local jails, and receive referrals from partner agencies.
If you'd like to contact members of the Substance Response Team, call:
(218)-730-4009
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