988 Crisis Improvement Project - The Kentucky Department for Behavioral Health, Developmental and Intellectual Disabilities (DBHDID), the State Mental Health Authority, seeks funding through the 988 Capacity Improvement Project to strengthen and sustain Kentucky's statewide 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline system. Building on Kentucky’s existing statewide network of 14 accredited 988 Crisis Contact Centers, the project will expand workforce capacity, improve service quality, strengthen crisis-to-community coordination, and enhance long-term sustainability to ensure that Kentucky’s centers answer at least 90% of in-state routed calls, chats, and texts while providing timely, trauma-informed, and least restrictive crisis care. Demand for 988 services continues to increase as awareness of the Lifeline grows and crisis contacts transition from local crisis lines to 988. Kentucky also faces significant behavioral health challenges, including more than 270,000 adolescents and adults reporting serious thoughts of suicide annually, disproportionately high veteran suicide rates, persistent overdose disparities in Appalachian communities, and more than 30,000 behavioral health-related emergency medical services responses each year. Continued growth in demand requires additional workforce capacity, standardized statewide protocols, enhanced follow-up services, improved data collection, and stronger integration across Kentucky’s behavioral health crisis continuum. The project has five goals: (1) strengthen recruitment, hiring, retention, well-being, training, and career development of Kentucky’s 988 workforce; (2) improve crisis response through standardized statewide protocols, enhanced referrals, follow-up care, 988-911 coordination, and integration with mobile crisis response, crisis stabilization services, and other crisis continuum partners; (3) enhance continuous quality improvement through standardized performance monitoring, help-seeker feedback, statewide evaluation, and public reporting; (4) implement secure, standardized statewide crisis data collection through integration with Kentucky’s Rural Health Transformation (RHT) initiative; and (5) develop a long-term sustainability plan supporting workforce, technology, funding, and continued expansion of Kentucky’s 988 system. The project will leverage partnerships with Kentucky’s 14 Community Mental Health Centers, Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinics, the Rural Health Transformation initiative, Kentucky Rapid Response, Stabilization and Support (KRRSS), emergency medical services, 911 public safety answering points, hospitals, and other behavioral health partners to strengthen coordination across the crisis continuum. Expected outcomes include sustained in-state response to at least 90% of routed contacts by modality, improved workforce recruitment and retention, increased participation in follow-up care, standardized statewide referral and documentation practices, enhanced quality improvement and data-driven decision making, and a sustainable, integrated 988 system that improves timely access to behavioral health crisis services for Kentuckians.
