Flathead County receives $453K Center for Mental Health Services Projects of Regional and National Significance grant from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration

Behavioral health mobile crisis team partnerships, expansion project - the Flathead County behavioral health mobile crisis team partnerships (mctp) project, led by the flathead city‑county health department (fcchd), will expand mobile crisis response across Flathead County, a frontier region of 111,814 residents where more than half live in geographically isolated communities with high suicide and substance‑use mortality. The current crisis assistance team (cat) operates only 12 hours daily, leaving a critical overnight gap that defaults behavioral‑health crises to law enforcement, ems, and the emergency department. The project will transition cat into a 24/7/365 behavioral health practitioner‑only (bhp‑only) mobile crisis infrastructure through a multi‑year workforce scale‑up. A new daytime community outreach team (cot) will provide mobile care coordination, physical‑health integration, and real‑time telepsychiatry linkage for high‑utilizer populations at shelters and the county detention center. Strategies include trauma‑informed care, intensive case management, stanley‑brown safety planning, and validated crisis screening using the c‑ssrs and safe‑t. A 0.50 fte project director and 0.25 fte evaluator will lead data‑driven cqi using ehr integration and automated 911 dispatch loops. Goals are to: (1) establish 24/7/365 bhp‑only crisis response; (2) formalize triage, dispatch, and clinical partnerships; and (3) operationalize the cot to reduce repeat crisis utilization. Over four years, the project will maximize medicaid billing and produce diversion metrics to support full inclusion of the expanded crisis infrastructure in the permanent county budget, ensuring long‑term sustainability.