Palo Alto police add clinician to aid with mental health crises

The Palo Alto Police Department just regained a clinician from Santa Clara County to assist officer response to acute mental health calls after the program went without one for more than two years.

The Psychiatric Emergency Response Team (PERT) program began as a pilot in 2021 and pairs a mental health clinician with a police officer to “allow for a more comprehensive response that is designed to provide the best possible resolution for the client,” according to city staff. The police department was the first agency in the county to take up the idea, and during the pilot the team responded to more than 350 calls for service and diverted 110 people to social services instead of involuntary hospitalization.

“The PERT program is unique among the various mental health response models; the pairing of a police officer with a licensed clinician, with all their diverse training and experience brought together to every call, allows them to provide service to clients in the most comprehensive and compassionate way possible,” city staff wrote in a report to the City Council.

The following year, the council upgraded the pilot to an ongoing operation and funded an additional full-time police officer. The county was still on the hook to fund a clinician, but was unsuccessful in hiring one for years. Santa Clara County Behavioral Health Services then told the city toward the end of last year that it could no longer fund a clinician at all — but could supply one if Palo Alto found the money.

“After our original assigned clinician left the county’s employ, (Palo Alto Police Department) continued to staff and deploy a PERT-trained officer to mental health related calls for service as we waited for another clinician to be assigned to us,” Assistant Police Chief James Reifschneider said in an email.

Now, Palo Alto is fronting the cost of hiring a clinician for the next five years, using funding from Stanford University Medical Center fund, which has $1.2 million set aside for mental health public safety initiatives. The total cost of the new contract between the city and the county is $1.4 million from 2026 to 2030, during which time the county will provide a clinician to the city for the PERT program. The city council is anticipated to approve the contract at its next regular meeting on Feb. 2.

According to city staff, Palo Alto will need to find another source of funding before the end of the contract, because the one-time Stanford funding will not cover the full five-year period.

Reifschneider said the new clinician began working in the field last week and said the department is pleased to have the full program running again.

One PERT team works four 10-hour shifts per week in an unmarked police vehicle. The officer half of the team wears a plainsclothes-style uniform to distinguish them from other police officers, according to the city staff report. The police department has indicated to the city that it hopes to operate PERT seven days a week in the future, and intends to request funding for a second PERT team if the resources become available.

“After more than two years without a clinician, we were thrilled to be assigned another county clinician as of January 2026,” Reifschneider said.

This story originally appeared in Palo Alto Weekly. Riley Cooke is a reporter at Palo Alto Weekly and Palo Alto Online focusing on city government.