In Whatcom County, people experiencing a mental health crisis have a couple of different options when it comes to calling someone for help.
They can call or text 988, a nationwide behavioral health crisis line, and be connected with a trained mental health professional in Washington within 30 seconds.
Or they can call 911 and be referred to a community connector within What-Comm who can determine if an alternative to law enforcement can be sent out to help the individual.
The two methods are ways to connect those in crisis to critical help without having to always involve law enforcement.
“One of the great benefits that we see of having that community connector embedded in our center is that they are on scene where the information is being collected,” said Alysn Everbeck, the deputy director of What-Comm, adding the connector can then determine which outreach team should respond to the individual.
Those response teams can include the alternative response team, the mobile crisis team or the homeless outreach team. Between November 2023 and October 2024, What-Comm dispatched alternative response teams 87% of the time to 2,400 crisis calls made in the time frame. Law enforcement were called 2% of the time.
“I see this as a huge win because when we started this program, there was a lot of concern about whether it would be appropriate to send calls and whether our teams would be able to appropriately identify which calls are good to divert away from law enforcement, safe for responders and appropriate for that kind of response,” Everbeck said.
In the future, the community connector program could provide additional information about individual callers when law enforcement does have to respond to crisis situations.
Meanwhile, if someone in Whatcom County calls or texts 988, they’re referred to a mental health counselor at Volunteers of America, which administers the program for 32 of Washington’s counties. People can also initiate an online chat through 988’s website.
Between January and September of this year, more than 79,000 Washingtonians called 988. About 91% of those calls were answered by someone in Washington.
988 also has specific hotlines including support for veterans, LGBTQ+ youth and tribal members. After someone hits the hotline they want to speak with, it takes under 30 seconds on average to connect the person with a mental health professional.
“We really encourage people to call 988 proactively before an acute suicidal crisis develops,” said Courtney Colwell, the director of 988 services at VOA Western Washington. “We also do take calls from people who are eminently suicidal and maybe they’ve had thoughts of suicide.”
Reasons people reach out to 988 range from behavioral health concerns to bullying or concern for a loved one.
At the end of the call or text, individuals also have the chance to give a contact number so that 988 can follow up 24 hours later and connect the individual with other community support.
“Looking at last month, we made over 3,000 follow-up calls and we received a little over 5,500 calls,” Colwell said.
Annie Todd is CDN’s criminal justice/enterprise reporter; reach her at annietodd@cascadiadaily.com; 360-922-3090 ext. 130.
