Q&A: Crisis Response Team leader Manning Walker introduces new Petaluma program

More than a year after the murder of George Floyd sparked nationwide protests over police violence and bolstered a local movement demanding policing reforms, Petaluma recently launched a dedicated team of crisis first responders this month.

The mobile crisis team goes by the acronym SAFE, which stands for Specialized Assistance for Everyone, and it officially began operations last week.

Led by Petaluma People Services Center in partnership with the city and the Petaluma Police Department, SAFE aims to provide crisis response, prevention and intervention for anyone in need, with special focus on those experiencing mental health and substance abuse problems as well as homelessness.

The move to the SAFE team follows a nationwide trend to install dedicated teams designed to minimize interactions with law enforcement, by providing on-the-ground support to people experiencing distress or mental health issues.

Much of that work is modeled after the CAHOOTS program established three decades ago in Eugene, Oregon.

Now a former medic with that program is heading up operations in Petaluma.

Manning Walker, SAFE’s new Program Manager, recently moved to Petaluma with his family to lead the local effort.

Walker recently answered a few questions about his new role and the forthcoming program in an interview that has been lightly edited for brevity and clarity.

Question: How would you explain the SAFE program?

Answer: The SAFE program will respond to crises and situations in which individuals’ coping skills and cognitive processes are overwhelmed and break down.

SAFE will be dispatched by public safety dispatchers as crises are reported via the non-emergency SAFE number, as well as by police officers and firefighters in the field, from other social service agencies, and from some 911 calls.

Q: What do you think is most important for residents to understand about the SAFE program?

A: SAFE will not replace the police, or the fire department. It will not fix shelterlessness, addiction and mental illness or cure family turmoil or suicidal youth.

It will mediate disputes, advocate for youth, collaborate with existing programs for mental health education, and support the development of individual coping skills. SAFE will deescalate and empower people to make more reasoned decisions about their personal needs, and will facilitate appropriate referrals, transportation and harm reduction measures to support people in pursuing those decisions.

It is a component of a more robust, well-rounded, and effective public safety service, and will reduce unnecessary police responses to non-criminal behaviors and unnecessary EMS responses to non-emergency medical/mental health calls, which will increase police and EMS efficiency.

Q: What will the next few months look like to get things up and running?

A: Initially, there will be a great deal of training and team development. While we assume that experienced mental health workers and EMTs (on the SAFE team) will be proficient in their individual skill sets, the nature of crisis work will require the development and refinement of those existing skills.

One of the subtle advantages that comes with being a brand-new program is that public awareness and demand tend to increase in tandem.

I am optimistic that, for the first couple months, this will afford the teams on duty ample time to engage in client outreach, public education, and inter-agency relationship building while call volume is ramping up.

Q: What excites you most about the task ahead?

A: Cultivating a cohesive team from a collection of individuals is always exciting. Finding a new place to live and making a home of it excites my family, and forging new social and professional connections is exiting, too.

The single most exciting thing, for me, is the opportunity to contribute to broader psycho-social resilience within our communities – resilience not just to mitigate daily crises of mental illness, addiction, and shelterlessness, but a culture of resilience to cope with the social turmoil of global crises as well.

Q: What else would you like to share with the community as the program gets ready for its debut?

A: My goal, one year from now, is when residents of Petaluma see a situation where they ask themselves, “Does this person need some kind of services?” – SAFE is the response that comes to mind.

Far too often in our society armed officers respond to mental health crises that then end in tragedy. Far too often a panicky person is either sedated in the hospital or left alone to stew in their anxieties because the fire department ruled out a heart attack.

When a person needs a moment to feel safe, think SAFE.

Contact Kathryn Palmer at kathryn.palmer@arguscourier.com, on Twitter @KathrynPlmr.