SEIL plans to add dedicated crisis intervention service

WASHINGTON — After completing a Request for Proposal process, the Southeast Iowa Link (SEIL) mental health and disability services region plans to sign a contract for “mobile response and crisis stabilization” community-based services that will respond to urgent mental and behavioral health calls.

According to Elevate’s proposal document, the service will provide “on-site, in-person intervention for individuals experiencing a mental health crisis,” mobilizing a team that can handle the emergency without involving the criminal justice system.

SEIL CEO Ryanne Wood said the highly-trained professionals would attempt to de-escalate every call over the phone. When that fails, they would dispatch to the scene, handle it in-person, and then connect callers with ongoing support services.

“Our law enforcement partners are dispatching to address issues of folks with mental health conditions, behavioral health conditions,” she said. “They might not be the most appropriate people to go out and intervene on those folks’ behalf … (Crisis response teams) will work very connected with our law enforcement partners.”

Wood said the 24/7 service, once in place, could be reached by calling 988 or Your Life Iowa at 855-581-8111. Alternatively, the mobile crisis response dispatch team could be contacted directly by law enforcement officers when needed.

Crisis intervention services are on the list of state-mandated “core services” that mental health and disability service regions must provide. Despite that status, is has never been available in the SEIL region, despite multiple attempts to seek out bids over the years.

Elevate Director of Crisis Services Jennifer Stevenson said her company happened to approach the region at the right time, after launching in the County Social Services MHDS region to the northeast.

“It’s a right-now service for a right-now problem,” she said. “We were able to stand up those services very quickly for the communities we serve … now that we’ve been doing that for a number of years, I then looked to see where in the state didn’t have services yet.”

The SEIL region plans to have a contract drafted and signed by July 1 of this year, according to Elevate’s RFP. The same document said teams would have an arrival time benchmark of 60 minutes throughout the service region, which covers eight counties as far northwest as Keokuk and as far southeast as Lee.

Washington County Sheriff Jared Schneider said the mobile crisis teams would supplement, but rarely replace a police response when 911 was called. Officers in the county receive crisis response training, and could usually reach a scene faster than Elevate’s personnel, despite their less specialized education.

“The two can actually work together,” he said. “There are times when it’s going to be more emergent and we’re not going to be able to use mobile crisis, and have to go through the process we’ve gone through for years to try to get them to the hospital and get them some help … It’s not as simple as, ‘mobile crisis takes the place of law enforcement.’”

Still, the service could have a jail-diverting effect, according to Washington County Supervisor and Vice Chair of the SEIL Governing Board Jack Seward Jr., who said local jails were currently the “largest provider of mental health services” in the nation.

“If a police officer, even though they’ve got critical response training, isn’t able to de-escalate the situation, then if the problem persists, the only choice that he has left, basically, is jail,” Seward said. “If they call a crisis response team to come, then they would be dealing with it, relieving the police officer from that long, involved call.”

Comments: Kalen.McCain@southeastiowaunion.com