Heading into 2020, Colorado should work toward a sustained decline in suicides and other catastrophic outcomes of mental health emergencies.

Taking a big step in that direction, the El Paso County Sheriff’s Office this week announced the expansion of its Behavioral Health Connect Unit (BHCON), which has saved lives since 2017. The program delivers a deputy trained in mental health and a clinician from UCHealth to emergency calls involving mental health concerns.

It is hard to imagine a better investment of public resources than one that helps people so desperate they may take their lives and/or the lives of others around them. Better mental health care would mean fewer shootings, less substance abuse, less violence, and less silent suffering by those who need help.

Colorado, and Colorado Springs in particular, have long suffered some of the country’s highest suicide rates among adults and teens. Suicide, an irrational act of desperation, almost always involves undetected, untreated or neglected mental illness. Colorado has too long treated mental illness as a crime. Instead of treatment, a person who needs help ends up in a cage to suffer even more.

We know from local experience the suicide trend is not intractable, because we can treat most varieties of mental illness. We know the community can help individuals with conditions that lead to suicides, substance abuse and other manifestations of mental illness.

Colorado’s suicide rate is increasing faster than that of any other state, based on a report this year by the United Health Foundation. Suicides among all age groups are more likely when communities fail to provide the mental health resources people need in a society burdened by depression, drugs, bullies, loneliness, heartache, and fear.

The value of intervention is not in question.

El Paso County health officials, as an example, have taken teen suicide head-on for most of the past two years. They created BHCON. They organized a suicide-prevention workgroup and educated teachers, parents, clergy, and others to look for signs of mental distress in time for life-saving interventions. They spread information about who to call and what to do when someone needs help.

The result has been priceless. As Colorado’s teen suicide rate rose by 58%, the rate in El Paso County — previously high among Colorado jurisdictions — dropped by almost 50%.

BHCON began with a five-year grant from the state; the Sheriff’s Office will help fund expansion. As explained in a Gazette news article by Olivia Prentzel, the Sheriff’s Office receives about 200 calls each month involving mental health emergencies. The original BHCON team responds to between 50 and 60 a month. If the second team doubles that capacity, the county needs at least two more teams to meet full demand.

Communities throughout Colorado need similar programs. Helping to fund, facilitate and encourage them should rank among the highest priorities of state legislators in 2020.

Colorado’s dearth of mental health care is a deadly disgrace, as seen in our suicide statistics. As El Paso County has found, we can make great progress by investing in life-saving prevention. Our loved ones, and our communities, are worth it.

El Paso County sheriff’s Deputy John Hammond and UCHealth clinician Robin Schawe are the Behavioral Health Connect team, responding to calls related to mental health.

Photo by Kaitlin Durbin

KAITLIN DURBIN, The Gazette