Dialing Back the Calls to 911
Mental Health Resource Officer, Chicago Police Department
Mental health treatment goes up, emergency calls go down. Stuart alumna Catherine Sanchez is leading the way to a win-win solution for Chicago police and the community.
Catherine Sanchez (M.P.A. ’17)A veteran Chicago police officer, Catherine Sanchez went back to school part-time at Stuart School of Business for a Master of Public Policy and Administration degree.
Her job and studies aligned when she used her master’s capstone project to research and develop a new crisis intervention model aimed at changing the way the city’s police interact with people with mental illness. The Chicago Police Department adopted her model for a pilot program in the 19th district.
Now Sanchez is on the front lines of leveraging community outreach strategies and police procedures to reduce the volume of emergency calls for first responders while also increasing the number of people with mental illness who are receiving the treatment they need.
Read more about Sanchez in Illinois Tech Magazine.