Dallas Adds Kids to Pioneering Approach for Mental Health Emergencies

Camped out in a white Chevy Tahoe in a Dallas police station parking lot, Lawanda Jackson waits for 911 calls to come in. Specifically those involving kids experiencing some sort of mental health crisis. Sometimes those calls come in waves, sometimes sporadically. But they always come.

Jackson, a licensed clinical social worker with Parkland Health, is part of an expanded Dallas team that launched earlier this year to respond to adolescent behavioral health emergency calls with mental health care, not just police presence. She’s nearly always busy. 

“Since COVID, things have certainly increased with the emotional well-being of our youth,” said Jackson. She cited 2025 data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that say 20% of the country’s adolescents have unmet mental health needs, and more than half are open to talking to healthcare professionals.

“They just don’t have access or awareness on how to do that,” Jackson said.

The program, RIGHT Care, an acronym for Rapid Integrated Group Healthcare Team, is a partnership between Parkland, the Dallas Police Department, and Dallas Fire-Rescue. It launched in 2018 to better respond to adult mental health calls and divert people from emergency rooms and jails when appropriate. It was the first effort in Texas to deploy a single coordinated team of law enforcement, medical staff, and mental health clinicians to help people experiencing behavioral health emergencies. What began as a single team operating in the police department’s South Central patrol division now includes 18 teams that work 24 hours a day citywide. 

In February, the program expanded to include kids ages 10 to 17 to meet the growing behavioral health needs for adolescents that Parkland has seen in its emergency room. In the program’s current six-month pilot stage, which is set to conclude in August, two RIGHT Care adolescent teams are on call daily from 3 p.m. to 11 p.m. when the volume for these calls is at its height. Their services are triggered when dispatch determines a 911 call warrants such a response, or when a caller requests RIGHT Care.  

“It was a population that we weren’t serving but one we thought we could make a difference with,” said Annette Glaz, a social work manager for RIGHT Care at Parkland.

Access to mental health care across the country is significantly limited, particularly in Texas, according to the 2025 State of Mental Health in America report from the Virginia-based research and public policy nonprofit Mental Health America. Nationwide, there were 320 individuals in need of mental health care for every one provider in 2024. In Texas, that ratio was 640:1, ranking it below every other state aside from Alabama for mental health workforce availability. 

Prior to RIGHT Care’s expansion, a Dallas police officer would respond to mental health-related 911 calls and determine if a child or teen needed to go to the hospital, but further services weren’t really provided, Glaz said. Now, those kids — at least as many as the RIGHT Care team can get to — are seen by a licensed mental health clinician who is trained to help individuals in crisis, and their families are connected to the long-term support they need.

The RIGHT Care adolescent program has responded to 130 calls and diverted 64 kids from hospitals since its February launch, according to Kurtis Young, the senior director of social work at Parkland. Five have been incarcerated. The Dallas Police Department, which collects 911 call data, did not respond to interview requests.

When a 911 call is made regarding an adolescent with possible behavioral health needs, a three-person team is dispatched. They include a police officer, a Parkland social worker, and a paramedic. The trio responds to the scene in a plain Chevy Tahoe outfitted with medical kits and computers for reviewing patient histories. No lights, no sirens.

Upon arrival, the police officer first ensures the situation is safe, then the medic steps in to assess if the person is medically stable. If so, that’s when a social worker like Jackson enters the picture.

On a recent call, a mother had contacted 911 because her teenage daughter was exhibiting concerning behaviors and was refusing to go to the hospital. When Jackson arrived at the family’s home, she first heard the mother’s account of the situation. Then she sat with the daughter in her bedroom and listened. The situation boiled down to classic head-butting between a parent and a teen. But Jackson, who previously worked in family preservation for Child Protective Services and as a school mental health counselor, noticed something else.

“I saw that this kid presented with symptoms of depression,” Jackson recalled. “She had sadness and hopelessness about things.”

Jackson talked with the girl about how she was feeling and helped her make a plan to find a therapist she’d feel comfortable with. She then gave the mother resources for helping her daughter. 

“This child did not need to go to the emergency department,” said Jackson, “but she did need a level of care.”

The collaborative approach to responding to mental health calls has not only improved patient care but also benefited the staff who are able to learn from each other. Dallas paramedic Jose Carranza said the additional mental health perspective he gets from working alongside social workers has given him a better understanding of the behavioral and emotional needs of young patients.

Limited staffing and hours prevent the RIGHT Care team from responding to all the eligible 911 calls, said Marco Rodriguez, who manages the program for the city of Dallas. But that could change. The agencies involved will review data collected during the six-month pilot program to determine whether it should be expanded, he said. 

“Hopefully with all the data we have and the need that we’ve identified, we can continue to grow and expand this portion of RIGHT Care,” said Rodriguez.

Eventually, more Dallas families may have someone with Jackson’s deep mental health expertise arrive at their door when a tough situation arises. 

“I am very hopeful, very optimistic by nature,” Jackson said. “Hope is what drives. It’s what brings you out of depression or anxious symptoms you may have. I just want to be able to offer that to anyone I encounter. That is why I do this work.”

Claire Ballor is a staff writer for The Lab Report. claire@labreportdallas.com.