Lake Oswego Police Department Hires Behavioral Health Clinician

LAKE OSWEGO – Since June of 2020, the Lake Oswego Police Department has been looking at hiring a person to work in conjunction with our department as a Behavioral Health Clinician. This Clinician would be part of the police department but would respond to those calls that would be best served by a person with specific, detailed, and appropriate Mental Health training and certification. As we envision it, this Clinician would be available to respond with an officer if needed but, more importantly, in many cases could respond alone to aid the person in crisis.

We are happy to announce that we have been able to recruit and hire our own clinician.  Amber Hambrick joined our team on April 12, 2021. She has a Bachelor of Science in Psychology and holds two Masters degrees in Counseling Education and Counseling Psychology. With 15 years of hands-on experience in mental health and case management, she comes to us from the Clackamas County Mobile Crisis Response Team where she most recently served as a Mental Health Specialist II.

Amber will work in partnership with our staff to assess and address behavioral health issues within our community and in collaboration with other mental health resources. In addition to working with our community members, she will be able to offer in-house training to our department on Crisis Intervention Techniques and De-Escalation, and she has already begun to do so. Amber will also be available to assist the West Linn police department on a part-time basis. We believe that partnership will be a tremendous benefit to both of our communities, and we are happy to have this resource to better serve our citizens.

We are so excited and grateful for the opportunity to have Amber on our team, and we look forward to the positive impact we believe she will be able to have on our community and our department.

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