Thursday, November 21, 2024
11/21/2024
The Department of Behavioral Health (DBH) is the state agency responsible for providing prevention, intervention, and treatment services and support to children, adolescents, and adults with mental health and/or substance use disorders in the District of Columbia (DC) and is the applicant for the 988 State and Territory Cooperative Agreement grant. In the District of Columbia, there is only one National Suicide Prevention Lifeline (Lifeline) member center, Access HelpLine (AHL), reporting to the DBH. The AHL provides a behavioral health crisis hotline 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, staffed by behavioral health professionals, who will direct callers to immediate assistance or ongoing care when clinically appropriate or necessary. In this capacity, the AHL call center answers calls to the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline for the District of Columbia. DBH plans to add chat, text, follow-up, and training capabilities to AHL's workforce and capabilities to be better equipped to handle contacts across the modalities. DBH and AHL will develop plans to maintain staff capacity, meet key performance indicators (KPIs) and explore the need for a national backup call center. DBH seeks to strengthen their existing efforts in expanding AHL's workforce and increase the confidence of call takers to appropriately respond to high acuity suicide calls. We want to align our clinical practice with advance technology to promote and educate others on 988 and to also create additional avenues of access to the residents of the District of Columbia. We are looking to reinforce our data collection efforts in producing data that will consistently inform our quality assurance protocols and assist in the creation of tracking critical incidents. Lastly, we are poised to implement our communication plan by utilizing many of the recommendations provided in the SAMHSA toolkit and are eagerly awaiting direction regarding geofencing as guidance regarding this will heavily impact and direct what and how we communicate more about 988 access to District residents.
HHS’ Tracking Accountability in Government Grants System (TAGGS) website provides access to detailed descriptions of grants, loans, aggregated direct payments and other types of financial assistance awarded by the HHS Operating Divisions (OPDIVs) and the Office of the Secretary Staff Divisions (STAFFDIVs).
