Regional crisis line shifts to local operator as Washington prepares 988 hub rollout

At a Cowlitz County Board of Health meeting, Great Rivers Behavioral Health Administrative Service Organization officials said Olympic Health and Recovery Services began operating the Great Rivers regional crisis line on April 1 and will seek designation as a 988 hub as the state aligns crisis services with the national 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline.

The change matters because Washington is reconfiguring how people access crisis care: state guidance calls for 988 to become the primary public entry point while regional crisis lines shift toward professional consultation and dispatch of local mobile crisis teams. Great Rivers officials said the shift aims to preserve local dispatch knowledge and faster in‑person response for the five‑county region that includes Cowlitz.

Trinidad Medina, chief executive director of Great Rivers Behavioral Health Administrative Service Organization, told the Board that Olympic Health and Recovery Services (OHRS) “began taking calls April 1” and that she tested the transition by calling at 9 a.m. and getting a live operator. Medina said the regional crisis line and 988 both provide telephone crisis intervention but that the regional line is community based and “local.”

Joe Avalos, executive director of Olympic Health and Recovery Services, said OHRS has provided designated crisis responder services in the Great Rivers region since 2018 and is familiar with…