Community crisis response - the mobile crisis expansion project will enable behavioral health services north ( bhsn ) to leverage its crisis response foundation to build capacity of the existing…

Community crisis response - the mobile crisis expansion project will enable behavioral health services north ( bhsn ) to leverage its crisis response foundation to build capacity of the existing mobile crisis services to serve more clients and support more ER and law enforcement diversions across clinton, warren, and washington counties in the " north country " of NY. Our population of focus includes all adults and children within 3 counties who experience behavioral health ( BH ) crises. These counties are part of the adirondack region, which compared to NY state as a whole, have significant issues with MH and SUD, affecting 1/3 of the medicaid population. Clients in our 3 counties experience frequent mental distress, rates of childhood abuse/maltreatment and suicide mortality rates higher than NY state as a whole. All counties have rural designation as MH health professional shortage areas (HPSAS). The HPSAS and rural geography point to a lack of access to BH. Bhsn is the sole licensed crisis response and 24/7 mobile crisis responder in clinton and 1 of 5 other organizations offering outpatient MH/SUD services in our catchment. While warren and washington counties have mobile crisis provider, IT only operates during daytime hours, with limited evening / after hour capacity. In 2020, our crisis calls increased by 189 % over our 2019 volume and calls from january to june of 2022 increased by 48 % over the comparative 2021 time frame, indicating a continued upward trend. While bhsn has extensive capacity to handle crisis calls through our existing crisis hotline and provide community based BH services, we have limited capacity to respond with mobile teams. The number of BH - related crisis called handled by local and state law enforcement far outweigh the number handled by our existing crisis team in clinton county. Our team has been handling an average of 4 mobile responses a week, while the combined law enforcement/EMS pickups and ER visits across the counties for adults and children have averaged over 10 - 15 times this amount, indicating a dire need for added infrastructure for mobile crisis response. The predominantly rural nature of our geography further hinders our ability to handle more client volume due to travel time. We have partnered with the following organizations to help achieve or projects goals and objectives : champlain valley family center ( cvfc ) - a local intensive crisis stabilization center, plattsburgh city police ( clinton county ), and morrisonville - schuyler falls volunteer ambulance service ( morrisonville EMS ) goal 1 enhance capacity for crisis services OBJ 1 a add 2 mobile crisis teams - increase volume of clients served by 250 % OBJ 1 D create workflow that support a direct referral stream bhsn mobile crisis response to new regional intensive crisis stabilization center, champlain valley family center goal 2 divert clients away from law enforcement responses towards appropriate BH services OBJ 2 a reduce involuntary pick UPS by city police department by 25 % OBJ 2 B reduce 911 law enforcement only responses by plattsburgh city police department by 30 % OBJ 2 C provide 3 crisis intervention trainings and evidence based suicide assessment training per year to state / local law enforcement and EMS staff to support diversion practices