In nearly a month of operation, Oklahoma’s 988 behavioral health crisis line has responded to hundreds of calls and has sent dozens of mobile crisis teams across the state to support Oklahomans.
It takes, on average, 14 seconds for a call to be answered, according to data provided by Solari Crisis and Human Services, the nonprofit running Oklahoma’s 988 center. From there, staff on the line can help with a variety of mental health concerns.
Staff at the call center have fielded 1,735 calls and dispatched mobile crisis teams 86 times as of Monday.
With more public attention around the new three-digit dialing code for mental health crises, the line has seen call volume swell, said Andrew Erwin, chief operating officer of Solari. He called Oklahoma’s rollout “a great success story.”
We sat down with Erwin about the first few weeks of 988 in Oklahoma and what Oklahomans should know about the line. This interview was edited for length and clarity.
If I were to call 988 today, what could I expect?
Erwin: We are very open-ended in the initial approach. They’re calling us for a reason, but those reasons can be varied.
We’re telling them they’ve contacted the Oklahoma behavioral health crisis line, and then we’re asking them what services they’re looking for. Some people, it could be like, ‘I need to get in to see somebody and I need help figuring out where to go next.’ Some people are asking for a mobile team. And then some people are saying they’re in a suicidal crisis in that moment.
Each one of those, we have answers for — it could be coordinating ongoing care with a provider that they’re enrolled with, all the way through to, we’re going to send out a mobile team to support you right now.
If someone calls 988, and the call taker determines the call is more suited to 911, how does that transfer work?
We call that a warm transfer. What happens is we get the call, and if we assess that there’s an imminent risk to the person on the phone or to somebody else, and we need first-responders, we will contact the 911 dispatch center.
We will let them know, ‘This is Andrew. I’m with the Oklahoma behavioral health crisis line. I have Dana on the phone with me. Dana’s reporting X, Y and Z.’
We can stay on the phone with them, and lots of times we do, so we can offer behavioral health support while that’s happening.
(In some emergency situations), we want to do what’s called a co-dispatch. If (911 is) sending out law enforcement, we could send out a mobile team to support them at the same time.
911 does the same thing. They’re able to contact us and they generally let us know, ‘I’m with 911 dispatch, we have a behavioral health emergency where we’d like the support of a mobile team.’ And they’re able to get that support from us.
How does 988 work in concert with 211?
We’re huge proponents of 211. We operate with the objective of connecting what’s happening in crisis to ongoing social determinants of health issues. What we see is that there’s generally social issues that bring people to this place of having a crisis.
In 988, we’re trying to address that in-the-moment need. But really what we want long-term is for people to have those supports.
So we do use 211 … we are utilizing those to connect people to their ongoing needs. Sometimes calls are about not having a job or food insecurity or housing issues. We give people those resources, and we leverage 211 to do that.
What has staffing and hiring looked like for the Oklahoma City call center?
“We started taking calls on July 5, and we were fully staffed.
We hired (about 30) staff members, and they are all local. These are Oklahomans who are taking those calls.
Why is it important to you that Oklahomans are answering the calls?
You want to make sure that people understand the culture, their community. They understand how things are coming across and why, and that’s something that we think is important.
The second part is understanding the resources.
A lot of times, we’re hiring people that have been case managers, social workers, counselors, sometimes people that have worked at 911, and they understand the systems of Oklahoma.
What we’re bringing is our experience on how systems should work, and bringing the technology to Oklahoma — things that we’ve done over a decade’s worth of time. But we are putting people with Oklahoma expertise into the seats to help support their community.
Do you expect call volume to keep increasing?
I think what we’re gonna see longer-term is that the call volume is going to increase.
One of the biggest things that we see across the country is that when there’s a service to be had, more people will call in. So as people acknowledge that mobile team services are something that is there for me, then that will increase the volume.