6,600+ Calls Diverted; Thousands of Hours Saved
Today, city leaders announced the one-year anniversary of Tulsa’s 24/7 mental health clinician partnership inside the 911 Center with Family & Children’s Services’ COPES program - a partnership that has resulted in more than 6,600 calls diverted from traditional first responder response and generated an estimated $450,000 in public safety savings through reduced response time and deployment.
Implemented last spring, the 24/7 clinician embed serves as a lifeline inside Tulsa’s 911 Center, taking mental health-related calls that would otherwise be dispatched to law enforcement, fire, or EMS personnel. Over the last year, the program has helped divert nearly 90% of eligible mental health-related calls away from first responders, with only 7% requiring a co-response from both a mental health clinician and police mobile crisis response teams.
“Becoming the safest big city in the country is about more than any single program - it’s about building the right partnerships and being willing to do things differently,” Mayor Nichols said. “I want to thank Family & Children’s Services, Healthy Minds, our first responders, and everyone across the system who helped make this 24/7 mental health clinician partnership a reality. At a time when maintaining and sustaining programs like this has become more difficult for communities across our state, I’m grateful for the leaders and partners who stayed committed to make sure this could succeed. The results we’re seeing are a clear proof of concept for what’s possible when we choose collaboration.”
Since implementation of the expanded model, Tulsa has seen a dramatic reduction in mental health emergency calls processed through the traditional dispatch system, decreasing from 11,379 calls in 2024 to 5,477 calls in 2025.
The reduction has allowed 911 dispatchers to spend more time responding to other emergencies while reducing extended periods of time spent managing mental health crises without direct clinical support. The reduced call burden has also improved operational capacity inside the 911 Center, allowing staff to focus more heavily on training, employee support, and strengthening emergency response operations overall.
“Even in its first year, Family & Children’s Services’ partnership with Tulsa 911 and our first responders is changing how people experiencing a crisis receive help,” said Stacey Andreassen, President and CEO of Family & Children's Services. “By working together, we are ensuring faster, more compassionate responses that connect individuals to the right support at the right moment when it matters most for them and for our community.”
The program has also strengthened coordination between emergency communications personnel, clinicians, law enforcement, and emergency medical responders while increasing long-term mental health support connections for callers in crisis.
"Mental health emergencies are impacting every city across the nation, and Tulsa is at the cutting edge of designing a better way to help,” said Zack Stoycoff, President and CEO of Healthy Minds Policy Initiative. “By allowing first responders to focus on public safety and deploying clinical help when it's needed, our community is truly setting a national example for ensuring people get the right response at the right time."
Project Background
The 911/COPES partnership represents the culmination of years of collaboration between 911, Family & Children’s Services, Healthy Minds Policy Initiative, City leaders and first responders to improve how the City responds to mental health emergencies.
While discussions centered on mental health calls at 911 have occurred for more than a decade, conversations with F&CS around embedding clinicians in Tulsa’s 911 Center began in 2019. In 2020, Tulsa launched a limited pilot program modeled after the Harris County 911 Center in Houston with support from United Way. At the time, clinicians were available during weekday business hours only, while officers and first responders continued responding to all mental health emergency calls.
In 2024, the City and its partners expanded the model through the PSC/COPES Call Diversion Program, committing to a fully embedded clinician model operating 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Tulsa 911 call takers and dispatchers also began receiving additional specialized training from the Tulsa Police Department’s Mental Health Unit on identifying mental health emergencies, active listening, victimology, and communicating with individuals experiencing suicidal crises.
During this time, the City also developed a Crisis Call Assessment Matrix to help determine the most appropriate response based on the level of threat posed to the individual, others, or the public. Calls involving no threat to others and no weapons can now be directly transferred to clinicians for immediate support and connection to services, while calls involving public safety threats continue to receive coordinated responses from Tulsa Police, EMSA, and the Tulsa Fire Department.
Ultimately, the 24/7 COPES embed is one part of a broader effort underway across Tulsa’s public safety and mental health systems to improve alternative response options, strengthen officer safety, and better connect residents to services.
Alternative Response Background
Over the past decade, the City of Tulsa, alongside members of the Tulsa City Council and community partners, has implemented various measures to address mental health calls in the field.
Most recently in early September of 2025, the City expanded its Alternative Response Team 2 (ART-2) in Downtown Tulsa to provide on-the-ground mental health response and outreach in the community seven days per week. This mobile integrated healthcare unit has proved invaluable to Downtown, now having handled thousands of calls, helping refer hundreds of people to services.
Tulsa has also continued investing in collaborative response programs like the Community Response Team (CRT), which is a specialized co-responder unit that includes a Tulsa Police Department officer, a Tulsa Fire Department paramedic, and a F&CS mental health clinician. Supported by COPES, this team works together to de-escalate 911 mental health crises and connect individuals with care instead of jail or emergency rooms.
There is also CARES - the Community Assistance, Referrals, and Education Services program - that connects 911 "high utilizers" and vulnerable populations, such as those experiencing homelessness or lacking resources, with social services, healthcare and housing. By focusing on root causes rather than just emergency treatment, the team has significantly reduced non-emergency 911 calls and ER visits.
The City has additionally expanded diversion and stabilization efforts, including the work of the Tulsa Sobering Center and other programs designed to improve outcomes for individuals in crisis, such as programs like the Special Services Docket at Tulsa Municipal Court – all aimed at improving service delivery to the citizens of Tulsa.
Ultimately, the goal is to continue building a coordinated public safety system that combines law enforcement, fire response, behavioral health professionals, outreach teams, and diversion services to better meet the needs of residents while allowing first responders to focus on emergencies where their expertise is most needed.
More Information
More data about the 911/COPES partnership can be found online at: https://www.tulsapolice.org/911dashboard
To see more about the new 911/COPES process,
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