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Maui wildfire behavioral‑health response: Department project director outlines recovery services, resiliency center
Summary
Department of Health project director Trevor Davis described a SAMHSA emergency-response grant supporting traditional‑healing, grief supports, a crisis line and a community behavioral‑health clinic in Lahaina, and outlined plans for a Kaanapali resiliency center funded initially by Maui County and charitable partners.
Trevor Davis, project director for the Maui behavioral‑health wildfire response, told the State Council on Mental Health that a SAMHSA emergency‑response award (about $19 million cited for emergency response work) has funded a two‑year effort to expand behavioral‑health services after the Lahaina fires.
Davis said the grant supports multiple approaches: formal clinical appointments, traditional‑healing and cultural‑practitioner services, grief support groups and community wellness events. He described operational challenges early in the recovery—interagency silos, repeated relocations of displaced people (he estimated about 8,000 displaced individuals), and unclear written communications that retraumatized some families—but also signaled improvements in interagency coordination.
Notable accomplishments under the grant include stand‑up of a crisis line, the launch of a Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinic (CCBHC) in Lahaina providing multilingual walk‑in services, numerous community trainings and an expanding provider network. Davis said the first quarterly data show a strong increase in clients served as contracted ‘surge’ providers came online in February–March and that quarter 2 is being treated as the operational baseline going forward.
He described a Kaanapali community resiliency center planned to open in roughly 2–2.5 months that will host wellness events, peer support, some behavioral‑health services and trainings for helpers; Maui County agreed to fund the first year of operations with charitable partners and a grassroots work group pursuing funding for years 2–5.
In Q&A, Medicaid and health‑plan representatives asked how credentialing and partnerships could be improved; Davis recommended streamlining provider credentialing and offered to share a one‑pager and slides about the resiliency center and the broader surge network.
