State, local partners outline 988 crisis-lifeline integration and invite Douglas County participation

State and nonprofit officials described Nevada’s rollout and local integration of the 988 behavioral health lifeline at a Douglas County Board of County Commissioners meeting, and asked local agencies to join a statewide coalition to shape how the service routes calls and works with local mobile response teams.

Megan Quintana, identified as the 988 supervisor for the Nevada Division of Public and Behavioral Health, told the board the state aims to answer 95% of 988 calls within 20 seconds by Nevada-based counselors and that 988 is intended for a broad range of behavioral-health needs, not only imminent suicide crises. “Callers remain anonymous and only share what they're comfortable with,” Quintana said. She told commissioners Nevada received roughly 52,000 988 contacts in 2024, 414 of them from Douglas County.

Robin Reedy, executive director of NAMI Nevada, and Mai Tran, community engagement manager for Carillon Behavioral Health, described how the lifeline will connect callers to local resources and how the state is building a broader crisis continuum that includes mobile response teams and crisis stabilization. Tran said Carillon opened a Southern Nevada 988 call center on July 1 and is serving as the state’s administrative services organization for the program. She said the system will route calls by broad location — a process officials called “georouting,” which is distinct from 911’s precise geolocation.

Local nonprofits and public-safety partners urged the county to take part in a statewide 988 coalition and to coordinate local resources. Debbie Poznan, executive director of the Suicide Prevention Network in Douglas County, said her organization had fielded many crisis calls before 988 and now directs callers to the lifeline when appropriate: “When we receive clients that come into our office, they say, 'Wow. I don't know what I would have done without 988.'” Daria Singer, director of Partnership Douglas County, described the county’s MOST mobile outreach team and said locally held data show diversion benefits: since 2017 their MOST program has averaged about 700 911 calls a year and “over 55% of calls divert individuals from our jail and 65% divert them from the hospital.”

Officials answered questions about how calls that require a law-enforcement or medical response will be transferred between 988 and 911. Quintana and Carillon staff said warm handoffs already exist in pilot programs; callers can be transferred to 911 PSAPs for emergency response, and 911 centers can — where pilots exist and policies allow — transfer nonemergency behavioral-health calls to 988. Quintana said about 0.5% of 988 contacts have required law-enforcement intervention in Nevada.

Speakers also addressed funding. Quintana said Nevada funds 988 primarily with a small monthly surcharge on phone service lines — currently 35 cents per line — and that most fee revenue is currently committed to the CareLawn/Carillon contract that operates the state system. She warned federal grant dollars from SAMHSA have been reduced and said the state is evaluating how to allocate existing fee revenue across call centers, mobile response, crisis stabilization and other parts of the crisis continuum.

Commissioners and local providers discussed operational and geographic issues important to Douglas County and nearby communities. Alpine County representatives said many of their residents rely on the Douglas County service area for care; officials asked the state and Carillon to ensure rural routing and cross‑jurisdiction coordination. County staff and nonprofit leaders asked the commissioners to appoint or designate representatives to the new 988 coalition so local differences — Nevada rural, frontier and urban needs — can be represented.

The presenters asked for ongoing local engagement rather than immediate board action; no formal county action was taken. Officials left contact information for the coalition and encouraged county staff and community partners to join. “We really want to work with you guys,” Quintana said, urging local participation in the coalition and in later planning for mobile response and crisis follow-up.