Today marks the two year anniversary of the state's launch of the Arrive Together program, pairing police officers with mental health professionals when responding to 911 calls involving mental health crises.

The program began as a pilot in Cumberland County, but is now serving a third of the state's population, according to Attorney General Matt Platkin, who today with Governor Murphy announced arrive hit another milestone operating in all 21 counties as state leaders celebrated a victory lap.

Community organizers told Melissa Rose Cooper there's still a lot of work to be done.

And the truth is Arrive Together is making a difference.

It's changing lives and it's saving lives.

A strong message New Jersey leaders law enforcement, mental health experts and other community leaders are sharing as they celebrate the two year anniversary of arrive together.

The program is an alternative way to effectively handle mental health emergencies through a partnership of resources.

When we think about 2000 interactions through this program now across the state, across all 21 of our counties, we don't know we don't know which one of those 2000 could have become that tragedy.

But for the interventions that we're putting into place.

It's an idea.

Attorney General Matt Platkin says he started thinking about before stepping into office.

Before I became Attorney general, it was in between stints in government and I had I had watched too many and still watch too many videos of fatal police encounters.

And one thing that was clear to me and so many of them was even if it's a justified incident, there were things we could have done to prevent it from getting to that point.

And I started working in private capacity on an alternative response program.

Now, in all 21 counties across the state Arrive Together is the first of its kind to partner law enforcement with mental health professionals.

When responding to mental health emergencies.

In a report published earlier this year by the Brookings Institution, data showed force wasn't used in 97% of cases during an arrived together call and 98% of calls did not result in an arrest.

The fact that police officers are calling for the teams, whether they're working within their towns or shared resource, it tells us that they're recognizing when a person is in a mental crisis and they're recognizing that they need another level of care.

I think that is a step forward of recognizing that police officers cannot solve a lot of social issues or any social issues that we have in this country.

But they still have to rely on police officers to be involved in the process when they shouldn't be involved in the process at all.

Zellie Thomas, of Black Lives Matter Paterson says community members have continuously expressed their concerns about arrive together to the attorney general's office, especially after the police shooting death of Najee Seabrooks.

For almost a year now.

We've been really adamant that these models are the ones that we want to incorporate in order to save lives.

This is not about hating police officers.

It's about recognizing that police officers can't solve all the problems in our community.

They shouldn't have to and they can't.

So we recognize that.

And instead we try to propose an alternative, a win win for all parties as a win for police officers who are not equipped to do this.

And it's a win for the community members, especially our most vulnerable.

To keep them safe in their towns, in the.

Attorney General Platkin and says the Arrive Together program will be tailored specifically to handle the needs of every community, all with the goal of keeping everyone safe.

For NJ Spotlight News, I'm Melissa Rose Cooper.