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Some Oklahoma parents turn kids over to the state after struggling to get mental health care for them

December 22, 2024
The sign outside of Youth Services of Tulsa. The non-profit agency runs an emergency youth shelter. DYLAN GOFORTH/THE FRONTIER

Lack of oversight, coordination hinder efforts to reform Arizona’s rise in maternal mortality

December 22, 2024
AZCIR Staff

‘Not knowing where to go’: Montana’s sparse landscape for alcohol detox

December 20, 2024
An emergency department sign in Missoula, Montana on Thursday, December 12, 2024. With very few treatment options available in Montana, hospital emergency departments are often the only place people can go when they are experiencing alcohol withdrawal. However, patients often end up leaving without the medication they need to manage withdrawal symptoms and they typically aren’t referred to inpatient or outpatient treatment programs. Credit: John Stember

A new national mental health crisis line launches soon. Some states aren’t ready.

©Bobbi Wiseman/Memorial Health: Barbara Wheatley takes phone calls as part of the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline Network. Wheatley is an alcohol and substance abuse counselor and the lead clinician for mobile crisis response for Memorial Behavioral Health in Springfield, Illinois.
©Bobbi Wiseman/Memorial Health: Barbara Wheatley takes phone calls as part of the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline Network. Wheatley is an alcohol and substance abuse counselor and the lead clinician for mobile crisis response for Memorial Behavioral Health in Springfield, Illinois.

Side Effects Public Media, June 13, 2022, by Carter Barrett: Staff at Memorial Behavioral Health in Springfield, Illinois, are on call around the clock to talk with people struggling with suicidal thoughts, drug addiction or other mental health crises. They provide a listening ear and help connect people to resources or crisis support, if needed.

Until recently, the hospital’s call center was operated 24/7 by on-call nurses and other clinical staff. But at times when everyone was tied up with patients, calls would go unanswered, bumping the caller to the nearest available call center.

“Staff would answer the phone 24/7, but if they were busy with intakes or with residents … then they wouldn’t be available to take the call,” said Diana Knaebe, president and system administrator of Memorial Behavioral Health.

Across the state, Illinois-based call centers answered just 1 in 5 in-state calls to the lifeline in the first three months of 2022. The other 80 percent were redirected to other states. Illinois has the lowest in-state answer rate in the nation, lagging far behind others. The state with the second-lowest rate, Texas, answered 40 percent of its calls during that same time period.

Letting so many calls go unanswered wasn’t ideal, but without state or federal support, Knaebe said it was the best they could do.

The center has since received federal funding to beef up their call center. It’s part of the rollout of a new national mental health crisis number, 988, that proponents hope will make it easier for more people to connect with the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline for help starting July 16.

Read more at Side Effects Public Media here.

If you or someone you know is struggling with suicidal thoughts, help is available. Contact the National Suicide Prevention Hotline at 800-273-8255 or the Crisis Text Line by texting HOME to 741741.