February 26, 2026

The University of Chicago Health Lab today released a comprehensive implementation evaluation of the Co-Response Unit (CRU) pilot in Michigan’s Washtenaw County. The report highlights both the promise and the practical challenges of pairing law enforcement and behavioral health professionals to respond to crisis calls, and offers recommendations for strengthening and sustaining the model going forward. 

Across the country, communities are rethinking how 911 systems respond to behavioral health crises, recognizing that many emergency calls involve mental illness, substance use, or social needs that may be best-addressed by health professionals rather than an exclusive law enforcement response.

Launched in June 2022, the CRU pilot brought together the Washtenaw County Sheriff’s Office (WCSO) and Washtenaw County Community Mental Health (CMH) to test a co-response model in which a sheriff’s deputy and a master’s-level clinician ride together and jointly respond to behavioral health-related 911 calls in Ypsilanti Township, which covers about 15% of Washtenaw County’s overall population.

Over the first 18 months of the pilot (June 2022–December 2023), the CRU team:

  • Operated 204 overnight shifts (7 p.m. to 7 a.m.);
  • Logged 1,537 activities involving encounters with individuals in crisis; and
  • Operated within a broader context of 2,730 behavioral health-related 911 calls (primarily in Ypsilanti Township), an average of 152 per month.

Health Lab’s evaluation found that the CRU carved out a distinctive niche in the county’s emergency response ecosystem. The team was especially effective in situations where “risk” and “need” overlapped — calls that required both public safety authority and behavioral health expertise.

“Programs like CRU recognize that not every crisis is primarily a criminal matter — many are fundamentally health-related,” said Dr. S. Rebecca Neusteter, executive director of the Health Lab. “Our evaluation shows that co-response can offer a thoughtful alternative that dedicates needed time, prioritizes wellbeing and connection to services, particularly during hours when other supports may be unavailable.”

Although originally designed to respond to mental health crises, the CRU also became an unexpected, but important pathway for assisting individuals experiencing homelessness and housing insecurity. Nearly 24% of responses involved people experiencing homelessness, while other common encounter types included mental health episodes and welfare checks.

The most frequent dispositions included providing connections to miscellaneous “other services,” sharing CRU contact information for follow-up, offering food or clothing, and, in some cases, respecting a person’s decision to refuse assistance. Ethnographic observations and interviews conducted by Health Lab researchers revealed that the team’s ability to spend adequate time on scene — de-escalating situations, building rapport, and coordinating care — was central to its perceived value.

A Continuum of Community Responders

The CRU pilot was grounded in a “continuum of community responders” framework championed by Sheriff Jerry Clayton, who served as the county’s sheriff from 2009 to 2025. That framework recognizes that emergency calls vary along two dimensions — risk and need — and that communities benefit from multiple response options, including police-only, clinician-only, coordinated, and co-response models. Health Lab’s findings underscore that implementing such models requires substantial cross-agency coordination, shared protocols, and sustained leadership commitment. The evaluation also notes that a second CRU team was added in July 2024. Sheriff Alyshia Dyer has announced plans to continue the program while exploring additional alternatives, including non-law-enforcement response options.

Key Recommendations for Strengthening the Model

Drawing on administrative data analysis, ride-alongs, dispatch center observations, and key informant interviews, the evaluation offers several recommendations to strengthen and scale the CRU model:

  1. Enhance Dispatch Training: Provide additional training for 911 professionals to ensure consistent identification and deployment of CRU-appropriate calls.
  2. Increase CMH Integration into Dispatch: Deepen integration between CMH and WCSO dispatch to improve call triage and response accuracy.
  3. Define and Track Impact: Develop clearer performance metrics and data systems to capture outcomes and long-term impact.
  4. Expand Public Education: Increase community awareness about the CRU and how it differs from traditional law enforcement responses.
  5. Broaden Response Options: Explore additional pathways, including video support and alternative response models that may not involve law enforcement.

“Implementation is where many promising ideas succeed or fail,” said Jason Lerner, director of programs at the Health Lab. “This evaluation provides a roadmap — not just for Washtenaw County, but for jurisdictions nationwide — on what it takes to operationalize co-response thoughtfully and sustainably.”

Informing National Conversations

In recent years, diverse responses to behavioral health-related and other 911 calls beyond law enforcement alone have increased in many jurisdictions nationwide. The Washtenaw CRU evaluation contributes to a growing national body of evidence examining approaches to traditional police-only responses.

“At the heart of this work is a simple question,” Neusteter added. “How can communities ensure that people in crisis receive the right response at the right time? Washtenaw County’s CRU offers important lessons — both encouraging and cautionary — for policymakers working to answer that question.”

The evaluation was made possible with support from The Joyce Foundation and Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Philanthropies. The Health Lab extends its deep appreciation to partners at WCSO, CMH, Metro Dispatch, and the many frontline professionals who participated in interviews and observations.

About the Methodology

The evaluation was designed as an implementation study, focusing on how the program operated rather than measuring long-term outcomes. Health Lab researchers conducted: in-depth interviews with agency leadership, deputies, clinicians, and dispatch staff; ride-alongs, and on-scene observations of the CRU team; observations at the county’s 911 Emergency Communications Center; and quantitative analysis of administrative data, including Computer Aided Dispatch (CAD) records, crime reports, and CRU activity logs. The study examined staffing, deployment practices, interagency collaboration, service delivery patterns, and descriptive outputs over the pilot period. Additional analyses — including recently received data from early 2024 — are anticipated in future updates.

The full report "Washtenaw County, MI, Co-Response Unit (CRU) Pilot: Implementation Evaluation,” was authored by, Alemu, M., Reuland, M., Lerner, J., Pollack, H., & Neusteter, S.R. of the University of Chicago Health Lab, February 2026, and is available here.