Redmond to integrate county-funded Sound Behavioral Health mobile response into Thrive program

Redmond city staff told the Public Safety and Human Services Committee on June 17 that Sound Behavioral Health's county-funded mobile response team will be incorporated into the city's Thrive alternative crisis-response program while the city evaluates the arrangement.

Chief Darryl Low, presenting the update, said Sound Behavioral Health is based in the Together Center building in Redmond and that the team includes "a licensed mental health professional, a social worker, a crisis responder, and a certified peer counselor." He added the unit operates "24 hours a day, 7 days a week" and has an "average response time of 15 minutes." Low said the program is funded through the King County Behavioral Health Levy and, as currently structured, "comes at no cost to Redmond residents or to our general fund."

The committee was told how the city's dispatchers will screen incoming calls using existing mobile-response criteria and transfer qualifying calls to the 988 center; 988 will then dispatch the mobile response team. Low said the council-funded positions the city had planned to create would…