Community College Partnership Fills Education, Mental Health Gaps In Amador County

In response to gaps in accessing psychiatric care, Cedar Oaks Clinic developed a team-based mental health care model that provides alternatives to psychiatric hospitalization through same-day crisis services, six-week intensive community programs, and collaborative care involving 30 specialized staff members. The clinic uses a holistic approach where providers from different specialties work together to create individualized treatment plans. So far, the clinic has served 3,000 patients, receiving hundreds of positive reviews.

New Jersey’s Mobile Response and Stabilization Services help support youth in crisis by connecting them with a mental health professional to avoid unnecessary emergency room visits or police calls. New Jersey’s system has been an inspiration to other states looking to implement similar services, and it served over 32,000 youth in 2023 alone.

Los Angeles County’s Homeless Outreach & Mobile Engagement (HOME) program uses street psychiatry to get psychiatric medication to people experiencing homelessness in an effort to get them a step closer to housing. The HOME team has 223 full-time staff members and served 1,919 people last year, 22% of whom ended the year housed.

The Detroit Wayne Integrated Health Network launched a series of mobile response vans that travel to area parks, libraries and neighborhoods to address the community’s growing mental health needs. The vans are intended to more proactively reach people experiencing a mental health crisis and minimize emergency room visits and police confrontations by getting them the appropriate care.

The Behavioral Health Urgent Care and Access Center at Integrated Services of Kalamazoo (ISK) works with local law enforcement to assist those experiencing mental health crises and divert them from having to visit emergency rooms or face incarceration. The ISK Center offers same-day treatment for substance abuse as well as mental health care. In the Center’s first month, they received 19,619 calls for service from the Kalamazoo County Sheriff’s Department, 2% of which were flagged as behavioral health calls.

Several state and local programs are emerging to fill the shoes of retiring doctors in the area, like the Advanced Nursing Education Workforce (ANEW) program. ANEW covers the cost of higher education for local nurses to become APRNs to then work as primary care nurse practitioners tto help address the lack of doctors and increase access to healthcare. So far, about 40 APRNs have graduated from the ANEWA program, 68% of which are from rural communities.

The Stress Resilience Center provides critical workers — like doctors and law enforcement — opportunities to learn psychological self-help skills. The goal is to equip the public with psychological wellness skills to prevent the number of people who need to seek psychological help from getting too high. Amidst the war, the Center also provides individual and family therapy for those experiencing loss, burnout and those with loved ones in the military.

Grand Rapids is working to reform behavioral health services and the way law enforcement interacts with those in a mental health crisis through efforts like its county-run crisis access center. An increased need has led to an expansion of these programs, and the city now has a psychiatric urgent care center, mobile crisis teams that make house calls, social workers who join the police on 911 calls and plans for a 24/7 behavioral health crisis center that will open in November.

As the number of students seeking mental health support increased, the University of Arizona’s Counseling and Psych Services increased the number of students it’s able to see — up to about 1,500 students a month — as well as the number of staff — from about 40 people in 2019 to 70. This staffing increase makes it easier for more students to access care. The center also provides options for students who struggle with the cost of mental health services.

CAHOOTS offers counseling, conflict resolution, mediation and referral and transportation to social services and/or basic emergency medical care to people experiencing a mental health crisis. CAHOOTS is available 24/7 and sends out crisis workers and medics as an alternative to uniformed police officers. CAHOOTS has significantly lightened law enforcement’s load, allowing officers to focus more on other public safety issues while preventing unnecessarily sending people through the criminal justice system.