Mayor’s Office outlines Be Heard team, limits and staffing challenges to Manhattan Community Board 2

Laquisha Grant, deputy executive director for mental health access at the Mayor’s Office of Community Mental Health, told Manhattan Community Board 2’s Human Services Committee that Be Heard is the city’s mental‑health 911 response pilot and that the office was added to the New York City charter in December 2021.

The presentation explained how Be Heard fits into the city’s broader crisis‑response system and what services are available through 988, 311, mobile crisis teams and support centers. “We like to think of 988 as the best front door into the mental‑health system,” Grant said. She and Simone Watson, senior director for mental health access and crisis response, described Be Heard teams, the eligibility criteria for a Be Heard dispatch and limits on what teams can safely do in the field.

Be Heard teams are three‑person units that respond without NYPD when criteria are met; each team includes two EMTs and one social worker and rides in a specialized vehicle, Grant said. Teams perform a physical assessment first, because medical conditions can appear as behavioral crises, and then a social worker does a behavioral health assessment. If the patient needs hospital care, teams will arrange transport; when appropriate,…