HI Discretionary Funding Fiscal Year 2023

Project Name: 988 Behavioral Health Crisis Call Center Process Improvement The purpose of the Hawaii application for the SAMHSA 988 State Cooperative Agreement funding opportunity is to provide funding for the much needed expansion of the existing behavioral health crisis call center workforce to meet current and future 988 response for the entire State of Hawaii. Funding will also allow for expansion of crisis center services including chat and text capabilities and follow up contact, all of which are currently not available. The Adult Mental Health Division (AMHD) of the Hawaii State Department of Health is responsible for coordinating public and private human services into an integrated and responsive delivery system for mental health needs. The AMHD services promote consumer stabilization into recovery and independence and include a safety-net of crisis intervention and support services in order to effectively treat individuals in crisis. From 2002 to 2019 the AMHD was the sole provider of crisis call center services statewide. In 2019, the crisis call center service was contracted to a sole, statewide Provider and the service is currently in the final stages of the RFP process. We anticipate selecting a new behavioral health call center provider in February 2022 with a go-live date of April 15, 2022. In 2021 the crisis call center received over 100,000 calls which included over 90,000 inbound calls from the local crisis line and over 8,000 from the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. With the implementation of 988, there is the expectation of increased volume of call. The crisis call center is 24 hours/ 7 day a week, statewide, and available to provide behavioral health crisis and suicide call center to provide telephonic crisis intervention and linkage to crisis supports and mental health resources. The goal of this project is to provide funding for the expansion of the crisis call center workforce to meet current and future 988 response for Hawaii statewide. In addition, funding will used to expand crisis center services to include chat, text, and follow up contact which is currently not available. The objectives are to have identified Provider in place and trained to respond to 988 calls, follow-up policies and procedures will be developed and implemented in accordance with Lifeline standards, will have operational chat and texting functions available, and we will meet the KPIs for the calls (90 percent of total calls answered; 95 percent answered in 20 seconds, 90 percent answered in 15 seconds). The target population for the Behavioral Health (BH) Continuum of Care (COC) services is any adult individual, adolescent individual, or families (including adults or adolescents) statewide, who meet the criteria for living with serious mental illness (SMI), or co-occurring substance use and mental health disorder; and/or b. Presents with significant functional impairment in the areas of self protection, impulse control, or social judgment, or a high risk of harm to self or others; and/or c. Presents with an emotional, behavioral, or psychological crisis, and whose immediate health and safety may be in jeopardy due to a mental health issue.