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State reports expansion of mental-health urgent cares and mobile crisis teams; proposed shift of a Howard Center outreach role draws municipal concern
Summary
DMH described an expanding network of mental health urgent cares (alternatives to emergency departments), 24/7 enhanced mobile crisis teams dispatched via 988, and a departmental plan to fold some grant-funded community outreach positions into mobile crisis; municipal leaders warned the change could shift costs and disrupt local outreach.
Deputy Commissioner Samantha Sweet and Commissioner Emily Haas described the state’s growing set of alternatives to emergency departments — often called mental‑health urgent cares — and the statewide rollout of enhanced mobile crisis teams that can be dispatched by 988.
Sweet listed existing urgent‑care sites and programs: Interlude (Middlebury), Front Porch (Northeast Kingdom Human Services), Access Hub (Washington County), Howard Center’s Mental Health Urgent Care (in partnership with UVM Medical Center and local partners in Burlington), Psychiatric Urgent Care for Kids (Bennington County/UBS), EPIC (Lamoille County), and youth-focused urgent care in HCRS/Windsor County. She said hours vary and that expanding evening and weekend hours remains limited by staffing.
Committee members pressed for utilization and outcome data. Sweet said many urgent cares opened in the last three to six months and that the department has counts of how many people were seen and…
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