LIVINGSTON — Park County is taking steps to better address mental health crises by forming a local, mobile, crisis response team.
"It's pretty widely known that Montana has mental health crises across the board per capita," says Joshua Chabalowski, Fire Chief for Livingston Fire Rescue.
Chabalowski is a member of the Park County Crisis Coalition, formed to address behavioral concerns.
"And Montana unfortunately leads the stats in suicides related to that. And Park County leads Montana in that," he says.
According to the Montana Department of Public Health and Human Services (DPHHS), Park County has higher rates of behavioral issues compared to other communities in Montana.
One in four adults report depression, compared to the state average of one in five. Park County’s suicide rate is 1.5 times the state average.
"We’ve seen that in the field. We address it almost on a daily basis. With 911 emergency calls that we respond to, there's at least a small component every day of patients that have that sort of issue going on," says Chabalowski.
One of the expected benefits of a mobile crisis response team is taking the burden off local first responders.
Chabalowski says, "Law enforcement doesn't have the capacity currently with the staffing and every else to handle it. The fire department can't handle it with the current staffing, so we had to create an entirely new unit."
The mobile response team is part of the Crisis Now Continuum—a nationwide model that lists someone to call, someone to respond, and somewhere to go, as best practices for addressing mental health.
"When they get in front of the patient, they’ll deescalate the situation, they’ll talk to them, they’ll find out exactly what they need, and then they’ll put a tablet in front of them and that tablet has psychiatrists and psychotherapists on the other end," says Chabalowski.
He says they hope that the restructuring of crisis response services will remove the stigma and fear that comes with asking for help.
"Because that’s really what it is, that person needs to ask for help and we’re gonna be there," he says.
