Mental Health Champions: How Scott Fadness, Mayor of Fishers, Indiana has launched a citywide effort to support mental health

Fishers is known for affluence and low crime, so mental health was never really top of my mind. That was until late 2014 when I found out that the majority of immediate detentions made by law enforcement in the city were related to mental health issues. Once per shift in the city of roughly 90,000 residents, officers detain people — including students — because they present a threat to themselves or others. After I found out that we weren’t really doing anything around mental health, I knew the city had to step in. We then launched a citywide effort to build up mental health supports, including a large focus on the city’s schools. The schools got new therapists, emergency response officials received new training, and public officials — from school employees to…