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What does a co-responder do for my organization?

  • Reduces use of force

  • Improves safety for all, including officers and deputies

  • Reduces liability

  • Improves service to the community

  • Reduces time on-scene

  • Reduces mental health transports

  • Sends staff home after shift with better peace of mind

  • Allows the difficult message--"Sorry, but we're worried about you, we think you need help"--to be delivered by a civilian; pacifies respondents with authority issues

  • More effective community policing

  • Improves law enforcement community image

  • Improves patrol job satisfaction

  • Honestly, we are still learning all the benefits and opportunities

What is Frontera?

Frontera is a privately held, rural-cop-focused, emergency mental health service formed to solve the problematic lack of mental health consultation for officers and deputies working in rural areas.

 

We use telehealth to offer instant response time and co-response that typically allows deputies and officers return to service very quickly--partly because they don't have to provide for the safety of the co-responder.  We are privately held as an LLC by sheriff request so our work will remain under our full control.

What if there are multiple calls at once?

We'll do what you would do; we'll prioritize and triage.

What special equipment do we need?

None.  You call us on your cell; after that, we'll use the respondent's device.  If they don't have one, we'll be stuck using your cell phone, but that's only happened once in two years.

What training is required?

Basically, none.  Use the QR code at the bottom of the page and you'll see what we mean. We do find that periodic attendance at briefing or team meetings increase the likelihood that patrol will use the service.  After all, it is kind of a new idea that you're not on your own with the mental health stuff.

What's next?

Well, the vision is that we all work together to fund our own service, done the way we need it to be done.  The more participants we have, the less cost to each participant.  We are serving 6 counties and two municipalities 24/7 right now, for less than $150,000/year.  

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