San Mateo County adding mental health crisis response

“This alternative response model is another huge step in making sure community members get the appropriate, person-centered response when and where they need it. I’m thrilled to be a part of making this critical resource available to our community as our work in this space continues,” Supervisor Noelia Corzo, who sponsored a study session on unarmed mobile mental health response in December 2023, said in a press release.

Once calls are screened, the hotline will dispatch clinicians trained in crisis assessment, de-escalation and intervention. They will arrive in nondescript vehicles — no lights and sirens — around-the-clock, any day of the year with the goal of stabilizing situations and, if necessary, taking individuals or arranging transportation to the appropriate level of care, according to officials.

“This is a compassionate approach to assist individuals with mental or behavioral health issues who should be handled with care by trained clinicians,” Supervisor David J. Canepa — who, along with Corzo, brought the Telecare contract to the Board for consideration — said in the release.

Nationally, as many as 15% of calls to 911 are for behavioral health emergencies, according to a 2021 study in the journal Psychiatric Services, according to officials.

The service will partially begin in May with one team during evening weekday hours before fully ramping up by August to five 24/7 teams and two on-call teams. It will be for people who do not need immediate hospitalization. The response team will also be equipped to administer Narcan, a drug that can treat narcotic overdose in an emergency situation. Response times within 60 minutes are expected in central county areas and 90 minutes in coastside regions, according to officials.

The mobile response team is part of a growing movement to ensure residents needing assistance get appropriate care. Daly City, San Mateo, Redwood City and South San Francisco joined forces with the nonprofit Starvista and the county’s Behavioral Health and Recovery Services Department to pilot a Crisis Wellness and Crisis Response Teams program. The co-response model deploys a mental health clinician to emergency calls in which someone is having a mental health crisis.

The county Sheriff’s Office has its Psychiatric Emergency Response team, launched in 2015, in collaboration with the Behavioral Health and Recovery Services Department as a co-response model. Sheriff Christina Corpus said she aims to expand the reach and availability of the program in part by hiring more PERT clinicians.

The mobile mental health crisis response service can be accessed at (650) 573-0350.

In other business, the county is asking AT&T officials to provide documents to testify in person on how its proposal to end landline service to thousands of customers who rely on AT&T as the Carrier of Last Resort will affect 911 and other key emergency services.

Supervisors had been scheduled at their regular meeting Tuesday to consider issuing AT&T a subpoena to comply with their request for information. Instead, through a representative present at the meeting, AT&T agreed to meet in good faith with the county over the next two weeks to provide information from subject matter experts and documents identifying where residents would see landline service cut under a proposal to the California Public Utilities Commission, as well as all areas where cellular coverage is lacking or where such service is unreliable.