Alabama mobile crisis response collaborative (AL-mcrc) is establishing and enhancing children, youth, and adult mobile crisis teams (MCT) in butler, calhoun, cleburn, coffee, convington, and…

The Department of Health and Human Services Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration awarded the Alabama Department of Mental Health $750,000 on September 30, 2026, under the Center for Mental Health Services Projects of Regional and National Significance program (CFDA 93.532) to establish and enhance mobile crisis teams in six Alabama counties.

The Alabama Mobile Crisis Response Collaborative will establish new children, youth, and adult mobile crisis teams in Butler, Calhoun, Cleburn, Coffee, Covington, and Crenshaw Counties. Calhoun and Cleburn Counties currently lack mobile crisis team services; Butler, Coffee, Covington, and Crenshaw Counties offer limited adult-only services. The teams will serve males and females across the lifespan experiencing mental health or substance use crises.

To expand capacity, the collaborative will develop implementation plans, formalize partnerships with key community partners, create training plans, establish data monitoring frameworks and continuous quality improvement processes, conduct crisis system planning and mapping, and develop sustainability plans. The project targets increasing timely access to person-centered mobile crisis services through coordinated behavioral health response, diverting behavioral health crises from the 911 system to the behavioral health crisis system, increasing 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline referrals to participating teams, increasing safe community-based crisis resolution without emergency department or law enforcement involvement, ensuring responses meet nationally recognized time standards for urban and rural areas, and implementing standardized continuous quality improvement processes using key performance indicators, consumer satisfaction data, and outcome measures.

Performance occurs in Montgomery, Alabama, with a period of performance from September 30, 2026, through September 29, 2030. The award is a Project Grant, an assistance type under the Center for Mental Health Services program supporting prevention, treatment, and recovery for Americans with mental health conditions.

Alabama mobile crisis response collaborative (AL-mcrc) is establishing and enhancing children, youth, and adult mobile crisis teams (MCT) in butler, calhoun, cleburn, coffee, convington, and crenshaw counties to expand behavioral health crisis response capacity in alabama. Currently no MCT services are offered in calhoun and cleburn counties, and limited adult only MCT services are offered in butler, coffee, covington, and crenshaw counties. MCT services will be provided to males and females across the lifespan. Participants will include anyone experiencing a mental health or substance use crisis. To increase capacity, AL-mcrc will develop the following strategies and protocols: implementation plans, formal partnerships with key community partners, training plans, data monitoring frameworks and continuous quality improvement, crisis system planning and mapping, and sustainability plans. AL-mcrc will achieve the following goals. Goal 1: increase timely access to person-centered MCT services through coordinated behavioral health crisis response by increasing the number of behavioral health crises diverted from the 911 system to the behavioral health crisis system, increasing referrals from the 988 suicide & crisis lifeline to participating mobile crisis teams, increasing the percentage of behavioral health crises resolved safely in community settings without emergency department utilization, increasing the percentage of behavioral health crises resolved safely in community settings without law enforcement involvement, ensuring mobile crisis team responses will meet nationally recognized response time standards appropriate for urban and rural service areas, and implementing a standardized continuous quality improvement (CQI) process that utilizes mobile crisis team key performance indicators (kpis), consumer satisfaction data, and outcome measures to monitor performance and implement quarterly quality improvement activities. Goal 2: expand mobile crisis team capacity to meet documented behavioral health crisis needs across the six-county catchment area by establishing and enhancing evidence-based adult/child/youth mobile crisis team at HHS, scamhb, increasing the annual number of mobile crisis team services delivered in-person, and ensuring individuals served by mobile crisis teams will receive appropriate follow-up and warm-handoff to ongoing behavioral health treatment within 72 hours of crisis encounter. Goal 3: build a sustainable, high-quality, and transferable mobile crisis team infrastructure across alabama by developing and implementing a statewide, data-informed coordination plan that strengthens collaboration among 988, 911, crisis call centers, mobile crisis teams, community mental health centers, hospitals, EMS, law enforcement, and other community partners, developing and implementing standardized mobile crisis team fidelity measures and conducting fidelity assessments, completing a comprehensive assessment of alabama's existing mobile crisis team training curriculum and identify strengths, gaps, and recommendations for enhancement, developing and disseminating enhanced mobile crisis team training modules addressing identified gaps, developing the alabama mobile crisis team implementation toolkit, including guidance on fidelity monitoring, evidence-based practices, community engagement, data collection, and continuous quality improvement, and completing a comprehensive technology utilization GAP analysis to identify priority technology needs, and developing a written implementation plan for system improvements.