Nov 9, 2023
Dr. Margie Balfour, a psychiatrist and Chief Clinical Quality Officer at Connections Health Solutions, discusses the challenges and demand for behavioral health crisis care. She highlights the implementation of the 988 Suicide and Crisis National Lifeline, which allows individuals to access mental health support by phone, text, or chat. With a focus on crisis stabilization, help from peer specialists, and face-to-face interventions, Margie emphasizes the importance of teamwork in crisis management.
Margie explains, "What 988 does is, now anyone from your phone, just like you could dial 911, you can dial 988. That connects to what used to be called the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. And that is a network of about 200 call centers around the country that are staffed with trained mental health counselors who can help. For a lot of crises, having someone to talk to can make people's symptoms decrease and get people connected to the care they need and help that crisis in the moment without having to send someone out. The new 988 number connects to that so that anyone can call it. But also, you can access it via text and chat, which a lot of people, especially younger people, prefer to communicate in that way. And so you can get crisis counseling that way as well."
"They're trained to provide counseling to help people develop a safety plan for what they will do the next time this happens. They can make appointments and connect people to outpatient care if that's what they need in the community. So they're able to, for those folks, bring stabilization in that process. People with higher-level needs sometimes need to speak to someone face-to-face or have someone come to where they are. They're calling for a family member, and that family member doesn't want to get on the phone, but someone needs to evaluate them, and then the crisis line can dispatch mobile crisis teams."
#ConnectionsHealthSolutions #SuicidePrevention #MentalHealth #988 #Suicide #BevioralHealthCrisisCare
