Many communities, including Belmont, have expressed an interest in utilizing Mental Health Clintons for dealing with situations involving people experiencing a mental health crisis.  The San Mateo County Board of Supervisors is currently embarking upon a pilot program that will embed a Mental Health Clinician into San Mateo County’s four largest city’s police departments – Redwood City, San Mateo, South San Francisco and Daly City.  The Belmont Police Department is also working toward improving responses to calls involving mental health crisis by implementing the new C.A.R.E. (Crisis Assessment Response and Education) program.  The C.A.R.E. team is comprised of three specially trained officers who have extensive backgrounds in child development and social services, crisis negotiations and field crisis response.  This team will provide extra training to the entire police department in addition to the Crisis Intervention training already provided, and they will collaborate with San Mateo County’s mental health professionals and social services providers to ensure mental health crisis calls are handled in the safest and most effective manner possible, while at the same time, attaining the proper mental health and social service follow-up victims and their families desperately need.