North Carolina Criminal Law

In May 2024, Orange County and the Chapel Hill Police Department launched the Crisis Assistance, Response, and Engagement (CARE) Team. The CARE Team is an all-civilian mobile crisis response team comprised of a mental health counselor, an emergency medical technician (EMT), and a peer support specialist. The Team also has a call diversion component, where a mental health counselor based in the 911 call center assists individuals in crisis over the phone while they wait for an in-person response, or, when appropriate, provides support that avoids an in-person response altogether. Through both components, the CARE Team provides a holistic response to 911 calls related to mental health concerns, substance use, intellectual and developmental disability, and low-level criminal offenses that are non-emergent.

In December, the School’s Criminal Justice Innovation Lab published a report evaluating the first thirteen months of CARE Team operations as part of an ongoing partnership with Orange County. This post explains the CARE Team model and summarizes some of the key findings from that report.

About the CARE Team Model

Alternative crisis response programs take many forms across North Carolina. Some readers may be familiar with the Lab’s other work on alternative responder programs, including a recent evaluation of Burlington’s co-responder model. Unlike a co-response model, where a behavioral health clinician responds to calls for service alongside law enforcement, the CARE Team responds to certain 911 calls instead of the police.

The CARE Team is only dispatched to specific call types that stakeholders carefully selected and programmed directly into the county’s Computer-Aided Dispatch (CAD) system. When a 911 call comes in, a telecommunicator gathers information to determine if the call may be CARE-eligible. If the call is eligible, then the CAD system prompts the telecommunicator to dispatch the CARE Team. This direct dispatch model means that the police are no longer the default response for the subset of CARE-eligible 911 calls. During the pilot period covered by the report, CARE Team mobile responses were limited to the Town of Chapel Hill.

The table below shows the nature codes for 911 calls that received a CARE Team mobile response between May 2024 and June 2025. These codes are generated in the CAD system and provide a general description of the primary reason for a call.

The CARE Team also assists in other calls for service when they are requested by the Chapel Hill Police Department (CHPD) or overhear a call on the radio and proactively request to be dispatched. They also engage in street outreach and conduct follow-up with community members who may benefit from additional support. If you’re interested to learn more about how the CARE Team is assigned to respond to certain events, see the flowchart on page 7 of the report.

Key Findings

The report includes sections on program scope, program outcomes, and criminal justice outcomes. Here are some of the key findings:

• Between May 6, 2024, and June 30, 2025, the CARE Team was involved in 1,154 interactions with 457 unique individuals in Chapel Hill, including being dispatched directly to 294 911 calls.
• The data support that the types of 911 calls that have been identified for direct dispatch to the CARE Team are appropriate and safe for a civilian response. The CARE Team did not abort any calls for safety reasons during the pilot period and the Team reported they were able to effectively respond to community members’ needs over 97% of the time.
• More than half of CARE-eligible calls did not receive a CARE Team response. Of the 624 CARE-eligible 911 calls between May 2024 and June 2025, 47.11% received a CARE Team response. The number one reason that the CARE Team did not respond to eligible calls was being logged out or out-of-service, which can be attributed in part to inconsistent staffing and logistical challenges early in the pilot period. The CARE Team being busy on other calls was the second most common reason they did not respond, suggesting that there is sizeable demand for the CARE Team despite the fact that they only respond to a small subset of 911 calls.
• The most common presenting issues for CARE Team clients were mental health concerns and homelessness. Fifty-five percent of CARE Team mobile responses involved a homeless client, even though less than 1% of Orange County’s population is experiencing homelessness.
• CARE Team responses rarely result in criminal justice actions. In thirteen months, only six interactions resulted in arrest and five ended in citations. Most often, calls are resolved at the scene after the Team provides supportive services, like counseling, education, or referrals to other resources.
• CARE Team responses save officer time. The CARE Team saved CHPD officers between an estimated 118 and 172 hours of time during the pilot period by responding directly to 911 calls. While we did not have the necessary data to do a more nuanced analysis of time savings, stakeholders in Orange County noted that officer time savings are also reflected by preventing future 911 calls and avoiding arrests, reports, court dates, transport, and other administrative tasks.

Implementation Lessons

The report also includes implementation lessons from local stakeholders that may be relevant for other communities interested in starting similar programs. These implementation lessons are summarized here, but you can find more details starting on page 30 of the report.

The Importance of Internal and External Education. Educating the public on the availability, purpose, and limitations of new alternative responder programs can help build community support. However, internal education across partner agencies is equally important to support successful implementation. In Orange County, stakeholders focused on clarifying how the new CARE Team differed from existing crisis response resources and building buy-in among key partners, particularly among telecommunicators who experienced greater uncertainty about the program than CHPD employees (see Figure 12 in the report, page 31).

Plan for Necessary Data Collection and Integration. Initially, CARE Team members documented interactions in a case management software that CHPD had been using for years. However, it became clear early on that developing new documentation procedures in the existing system and extracting data from that system was extremely difficult. Ultimately, CHPD has decided to switch to a different case management system. Other jurisdictions seeking to start alternative response programs may benefit from paying close attention to functionality, customization, and reporting features before investing in a case management software.

Be Mindful of Alternative Responder Health & Wellness. Health and wellness resources can be crucial for preventing burnout and retaining alternative responders. Some health and wellness considerations are simple, like the fact that CHPD provided the CARE Team with comfortable shoes since they routinely walk for miles each day. Others are more complex, like creating open opportunities for alternative responders to debrief after emotionally challenging or traumatizing situations.

Prioritize Ongoing Coordination and Collaboration. The working group of stakeholders responsible for the development and implementation of the CARE Team has met consistently for more than two years. Maintaining an open line of communication can facilitate problem-solving when issues arise and give partners a continued sense of ownership and investment in the program.

What’s Next for the CARE Team?

The CARE Team will celebrate their second anniversary in May 2026. Operations have expanded and the Team now responds to calls in Carrboro in addition to Chapel Hill. In 2026, a second CARE Team will be brought on board. With two teams, the CARE program will be able to cover more hours of the day, answer more calls, and avoid periods where staffing shortages limit their ability to respond.

If you have questions about the report, feel free to reach out to me at hturner@sog.unc.edu. There are a variety of other resources on alternative responder programs available on our website, which you can find here.