Mobile mental health squads in high demand in Wichita

Takeaways:

• Mobile crisis teams strain to keep up with the demand in Wichita.
• A shortage of mental health professionals able to work later shifts makes it hard to keep mental health teams on duty.
• COMCARE staff are optimistic and excited about the future of mobile crisis response services

For generations, the job of talking somebody down from a psychotic episode in Wichita usually fell to whatever police officers fielded the call for help.

That meant somebody with a gun and handcuffs was sent to deal with everything from a depressive episode to erratic behavior to paranoid delusions.

Last year, city and county officials matched mental health clinicians with officers and paramedics in integrated care teams. On wheels. They aimed to change potentially confrontational situations into chances to spare someone with psychosis from immediate disaster.

The program expanded in November, and the mobile response teams fielded a few dozen calls that month. By April, they had more than 300 calls that month.

Instantly in demand. Almost as quickly, they’re in high demand.

“Not every one of those calls is going to get a response because we just don’t have that many staff members,” said Malachi Winters, a crisis team supervisor at community behavioral health clinic COMCARE of Sedgwick County.

The mobile crisis response teams can have police and clinicians who drive out to emergencies. They’re designed to meet people where the crisis is happening rather than wait for them to come to a clinic.

COMCARE estimates its integrated care teams can’t respond to about 10% of calls. Sometimes every team is busy, and other times the call isn’t directly related to mental health needs.

Increases in calls and staff shortages make responding to emergencies harder. The crisis center remains open and suicide hotline calls still get answered. Police also have other mental health professionals they can refer people to if mobile teams aren’t available.

Jennifer Wilson, director of crisis services at COMCARE, said demand for mobile response teams is increasing, but conversations about adding more are still early in the process.

The increase in calls is due in part to the 988 suicide hotline. It started in July 2022 and saw a 27% increase in calls in its first six months after changing from a longer phone number. The marketing campaign and easy-to-remember number helped.

COMCARE had some mobile response teams before 988, but the additional promotion of the new service is helping more know about its existence.

Jessica Provines, assistant vice president for wellness and chief psychologist at Wichita State University, said the university has seen unprecedented growth in demand for on-campus mental health services since the late 2000s. She said that reflects a rise in anxiety and depression in Wichita.

A 2021 report from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control found that 42% of youth felt persistent sadness and hopelessness. That’s up from 28% in 2011. In 2021, 22% of kids seriously thought about suicide. That’s up from 16% in 2011.

The increase comes partially from more people talking about their struggles because of a fading stigma in speaking about those issues, Provines said. Mental health issues, she said, are also increasing because lifestyles are changing to be more disconnected, isolated and lonely.

If mental health continues to get worse, demand for crisis teams figures to rise with the trend.

“Getting crisis services available to people in acute crisis is the difference between life and death,” Provines said. “It really can save people’s lives.”

More response teams would be a welcome addition, but one barrier to more programming is staffing shortages.

COMCARE has two openings for clinicians on its integrated care teams and five openings on its mobile crisis response teams. Its eight mobile crisis response teams have two staff members per unit. Other integrated care teams work alongside Wichita police.

Wilson said it’s particularly hard to hire second- and third-shift employees. She said the crisis center and mobile teams can find people for daytime shifts, but the evening and night hours are difficult.

Qualified candidates are taking jobs with better hours.

“I don’t want to say that there’s not the professionals here,” Wilson said. “There’s just not an influx of applicants.”

Winters, with COMCARE, is optimistic despite the hiring struggles and rising mental health needs.

“We are witnessing a paradigm shift in how mental health care is being provided to the community into a more efficient evidence-based direct model,” he said. “We’re evolving in the right direction and I think the excitement is going to grow with that throughout the field.”