2,111 Mobile Crisis Teams Operating Now (And More To Come)

Plus AMSA Talks with Ethan Cheramie of On Scene Services

HEADLINES

PENNSYLVANIA - The Cost of Failing (Spotlight PA)

Pennsylvania broke decades of promises to build a better system for people with mental illness. One mother's desperate fight to save her son shows the devastating consequences.

Partnering with the Lehigh Valley Justice Institute, Spotlight PA commissioned a first-of-its-kind analysis of mental health spending and services in all 67 counties that traces cuts down to the dollar and shows how many fewer people are served today than just a few years ago.

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MIAMI - New Grant to Dade County Street Response to Bolster Mental Health Crisis Response and Holistic Support Services (press release)

A grant from the Bristol Myers Squibb Foundation will expand Dade County Street Response for community members experiencing mental health emergencies while scaling a range of holistic wrap-around services to provide long-term support and prevent future behavioral health crises. The two organizations anticipate DCSR will be able to reach hundreds more patients each year.

The grant will also launch a mental health crisis line, available 10 hours a day, 7 days a week during peak call times, staffed by trained intervention specialists, along with the expanded deployment of DCSR’s mobile crisis unit — made possible through the hiring of several new clinicians and support staff.

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WEST VIRGINIA - After adopting 24/7 mobile response, Westbrook crisis team reflects on their work (WTAP)

The program sends trained crisis specialists directly to people experiencing mental health or substance abuse emergencies, offering an alternative to traditional emergency room visits or law enforcement-only responses.

Youth peer mentor Sunshine Ham brings a unique perspective to the children’s mobile crisis team, drawing on her own lived experience with mental health struggles.

“I have the lived experience of it. So where all of the other crisis workers will have their degree and they are familiar with working in the field and things like that, I have the lived experience of it. So that, coupled with the things that I’ve been through in my life, help me be able to do what I do as a job,” Ham said.

Ham said working with children often comes down to something simple.

“A lot of times kids just need somebody who cares. So a lot of times when we talk to kiddos, they really just want somebody to sit there and listen to what they have to say. So, I think even being a shoulder for them to cry on or somebody that they know is there fully for them to listen to you is very beneficial,” Ham said.

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VIRGINIA - ‘We’re going to respond’: Mobile Response Unit aims to bring addiction support to rural communities (WRIC)

With $113,000 in funding from the Virginia Opioid Abatement Authority, Prince George County, Hopewell, Dinwiddie and Surry counties are teaming up to roll out a Mobile Overdose Response Unit — a first-of-its-kind regional collaboration aimed at saving lives and breaking the cycle of addiction.