In an effort to address the service gaps in the Crisis Continuum of Care, ICBHS proposes the establishment of the Mobile Triage Response Team (MTRT) program. The program will serve individuals experiencing psychiatric emergencies within Imperial County. The County of Imperial is located on the southern border of California and encompasses 4,175 square miles adjacent to the United States-Mexico International Border. The community is a primarily agriculture driven and is comprised of 17 population centers surrounded by 500,000+ acres of land dedicated to agricultural production. The awarding of the Community Crisis Response Partnerships grant would allow ICBHS to develop new mobile crisis response team that will address service gaps for individuals experiencing psychiatric emergencies within Imperial County, mitigate the unnecessary use of law enforcement, shorten response times within the community and further strengthen the continuum of care model. The MTRT program will bring increased service capacity by integrating an additional mental health professional staff that will provide crisis call de-escalation, respond to dispatch requests and provide continuum of care resources to individuals during post-crisis, follow-up. As part of discharge planning and post crisis follow up, the MTRT program will offer referrals to the ICBHS outpatient clinics, social services to secure health and safety net benefits, and provide client with supports to ensure there access barrier to services are mitigated. It is estimated this program will provide services to 150 individuals annually and 600 thought the lifetime of the project.
The goals of MTRT include the following:
Goal #1: Reduce the percentage of individuals requiring a 5150 application by emergency responders.
Goal #2: Reduce the percentage of cancelled crisis response requests by community agencies.
Goal #3: Increase community agency outreach, engagement, and education about behavioral health services.
Goal #4: Decrease the number of clients transferred from the MHTU to an inpatient psychiatric hospital due to a psychiatric condition.
Goal #5: Establish a behavioral health conscious approach to the joint response model and decrease the average response time for urgent condition requests