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Program pairing police officers with mental health clinicians will now cover entire Davidson County

Courtesy of Nashville Mayor David Briley
The Mental Health Cooperative's government-funded crisis center in Nashville includes several holding areas for patients as well as one-on-one meeting rooms.
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Davidson County will see more mental health clinicians, and not just police officers, responding to mental health crisis calls.

The Metro Nashville Police Department’s Partners in Care program, which pairs officers with experts from the Mental Health Cooperative, began in June 2021 and expanded to each police precinct one at a time. The program went county-wide Wednesday after the West Precinct became the eighth and final one to join the effort.

Metro Police say officers and clinicians in the partnership have responded to about 6,000 mental health crises since the program launched three years ago. In March, the department said three in four of these cases end in treatment referrals, rather than arrests. The program will now operate five days a week throughout Davidson County. 

Char Daston

Char Daston is a reporter and newscast writer for WPLN. Char got his start in public radio at WYSO public radio in Yellow Springs, Ohio, where he answered questions sent in by listeners for a program called WYSO Curious. He went on to work at St. Louis Public Radio and WBEZ Chicago, where he produced the daily talk show Reset and reported for the education desk. His work has appeared nationally on shows like Morning Edition and The World. A native of Cincinnati, Ohio, Char attended college and grad school at the University of Chicago, where he wrote his master’s thesis on the politics of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood. Unable to settle on one creative project, Char enjoys writing poetry, plays and video essays in his spare time. You’ll likely find him rushing to choir rehearsal or seeking out Nashville’s best Thai and Korean food.

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