By Erica C. Barnett
On Seattle Nice this week, our guest is Amy Barden, director of the city’s Community Assisted Response and Engagement (CARE) department.
Barden has been on the job for just over two years, running the city’s 911 operations while also setting up an unarmed team of social workers who respond to emergency calls that don’t require police—the CARE Team.
The CARE Team is expanding to 48 members this year, and their size will no longer be capped under the city’s contract with the Seattle Police Officers’ Guild (SPOG), which has historically resisted reducing the duties that legally have to be performed by police, like directing traffic and responding to 911 calls.
Barden has not had a single one-on-one meeting with Police Chief Shon Barnes since former mayor Bruce Harrell appointed him as police chief in late 2024, PubliCola separately confirmed.
Barnes, who frequently speaks at length to friendly TV and radio outlets, told two KIRO hosts shortly before last year’s election that SPD officers typically don’t seek assistance from CARE on crisis calls because they are “problem solvers” who resolve most crises on their own.
“It doesn’t make sense to get to a call and then realize, well, this is something for the CARE Team. When you’re already there, you just counsel [the person in crisis, you solve the problem, then you move on to something else,” Barnes said. “So it’s not that the officers don’t like it, it’s that if they’re assigned to a call, when they go there, they’re going to do what we pay them to do—to solve that problem.”
Barden said officers frequently that people in crisis tell them that they don’t want services. “My colleagues in CARE are, like, yeah, they don’t want services from you. … Why would [they] say yes to an officer? And again, that’s not the same skill set. No matter how cross-trained they are, they can’t have the same conversation that these [Mental Health Professionals] can hav. And our understanding of the resources and the system is totally different. So that’s something we really need to work on.”
But the contract also includes new constraints on CARE that limit where the team is allowed to go and when they have to back off and call police. CARE can’t help people if there are signs that they’ve recently used drugs, for instance, and they aren’t allowed to go inside most buildings or respond to people inside cars.
CARE had no direct say on the contract, which allowed SPOG to determine their working conditions, but Barden said that she was periodically asked questions about issues that impacted the team.
“One question I got, very specifically, was, ‘Would you feel comfortable if CARE can’t go into private space,'” such as permanent supportive housing, Barden said. “I said, ‘Categorically, no—that would render them virtually useless.'” But that restriction ended up in the contract anyway.
Police sergeants are also still responsible for deciding whether to send cops or CARE during individual 911 calls, putting the team at the mercy of the cops they are supposed to be freeing up so they can respond to other duties.
Barden said that she expected police to direct more calls to CARE after city labor negotiators approved the contract, which also boosted cops’ starting salaries to $126,000 after a six-month training period. Instead, “I’m really disappointed that it’s actually gotten worse since the contract, and I don’t understand that,” Barden said.
“I had a theory that it’s like, ‘Oh, we’re just in weird negotiation land, and everything’s going to go back” to normal, Barden continued. But the sergeants who decide whether to dispatch CARE are increasingly sending out community service officers (CSOs)—civilian SPD employees without formal training in mental health care or social work—to calls that Barden says should go to CARE.
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“If you look at the data, you can see more and more and more police are routing to CSOs rather than routing to CARE the way that they were in the first year,” Barden said. “The CSO calls go up, and the CARE calls go down. … . I value that team. … [But] that is not a first responder team that is trained to go to clinical calls. It’s not. And so there’s some natural conflict and tension there.”
Barden also told us she supports integrating CARE and the Downtown Emergency Service Center’s Mobile Rapid Crisis Response Teams with 988, which connects callers in crisis to trained mental health crisis responders, rather than the police-oriented 911 system. We also talked about how CARE has evolved in its first 27 months, what happens when people call 911 for a person in crisis, and Barden’s hopes for the team under new mayor Katie Wilson and a more progressive City Council.
Leadership is about innovation and problem solving. Barden is doing a lot of whining, how about developing proactive strategies for Care team to get out on the streets and actually engage with people. We see drug addicts and “homeless” all the time, wandering public streets and parks – I’ve yet to see the Care team walking around being proactive, simply talking with people who look like they might need a kind word or simple hello might actually lead to Care team developing relationships and getting to know people in the community they are supposedly “trained” to help. Barden needs to stop whining, start leading, start innovating, start engaging with people and doing actual follow-up work. Just sitting around whining about not being called – that is not good leadership or efficient use of tax payer money.
GAWD I hope that Mayor Katie Wilson makes some serious changes at SPD, starting with knocking it through Shon Barnes’ thick head that the CARE Team is not something he or his people can just ignore. Let’s start by slashing his command staff and their upper admin staff budget and directing the savings to CARE.
Need to have a serious meeting with the Mayor’s office, Barnes, SPOG rep, CSO chief, sergeant dispatchers, and Amy to hash this out. It doesn’t appear that everyone is on the same page. The Mayor has the mandate from the Seattle voters for a different approach to policing, so her vision should be carried out by everyone else.
There are some legitimate safety concerns with CARE officers on certain types of calls, but maybe the solution is to have a SPD officer within range (in immediate vicinity) that could arrive at the scene very quickly if called (CARE officers should have panic buttons linked to SPD) rather than directly dealing with the person needing help. Mental health and social work skills of CARE officers are critically important on many SPD calls, and the SPD should welcome such expertise rather than have a dispatch preference for SPD or CSO. Some people in crisis have a knee-jerk reaction to visible police presence that often escalates the situation.
Metteyya, people often forget that in 911 we dispatch SFD and medics (unarmed responders, like CARE) about 200,000 times a year to calls. If a safety concern arises, we call for police backup. CARE responder protocols are designed the same way, dispatched over police channels in 911, with the same support on demand if needed. CARE has been to nearly 10,000 calls now without incident. Thank you for your interest and support!
The challenge is these scenes are never the same. There are so many variables that change things and sometimes that happens very fast. No one wants to see a CARE or CSO injured or worse. This has happened to social workers in the field twice that I know of in the Puget Sound area. So rolling SOLO to some of these calls for service might work out well for them 100 times. It’s the 101st when it doesn’t that will matter. The problem with CARE or CSO going into calls alone is that if they end up in a jam, it might take a long time for help to arrive. Staffing is still down, cops are busy going to 911 calls, writing reports, and handling administrative tasks like required on line training, interviews with defense investigators, and court appearances. CARE or CSO shouldn’t rely on instant help if they need it in the field not because cops don’t want to go, but because they will probably be a long way off. So it’s going to be a delicate balance of risk vs. benefit. I’ve responded to several calls with CARE. But in cases of drug overdoses, if the patient is transported by ambulance or medic unit, CARE isn’t appropriate at that time. After they are resuscitated with NARCAN, they will often walk off before CARE arrives and we are powerless to stop them. There was one call I went to with CARE that they could have handled without me. There was no need for the police but the fire department insisted police go ahead of them to make sure the scene secure. On the other hand, I have responded with CARE and once law enforcement interests have been addressed I’ve excused myself because my presence was more of a hinderance then a benefit to CARE’s mission. Here is how that looks. Let’s say someone calls 911 to report someone blocking a sidewalk, drug paraphernalia laying about or they are drinking alcohol in public. I can still take enforcement action by identifying the person, issue them a citation or forward a report to the city attorney who can consider charging them. CARE could still join in and help the person address what ever it was that got them into trouble to begin with which is what we want done in the first place. Who can argue against that ? It’s going to take some time and as with anything new, there will be growing pains and adjustments that will be needed.