DMH proposes to bring Team 2 training in-house, highlights statewide dispatch tech and 988 coordination

The Department of Mental Health (DMH) told the House Healthcare committee Feb. 17 that it intends to bring some crisis‑training work that has been run under a separate “team 2” program into the agency’s own operations while adapting and expanding the curriculum to meet statewide needs.

“the Department of Mental Health has, prioritized, supporting our community, as as best we can, making sure that we have, someone to call, someone to respond and somewhere to go,” Emily Hawes, commissioner for the Department of Mental Health, said in her opening remarks. Hawes and Jeremy Terry, DMH’s crisis director, told members the in‑house approach would combine factual instruction with scenario‑based de‑escalation exercises and cross‑discipline role‑playing for police, EMS, fire and mental‑health clinicians.

Terry described the role DMH expects technology to play in coordinating responses statewide. “BHL is Behavioral Health Link. It allows for the crisis continuum to be married, essentially,” he said, explaining that BHL is a GPS‑enabled dispatch and communication platform intended to let mobile crisis teams, 988 call centers, designated agencies and crisis centers connect and identify the closest responding team. Terry said the year‑one subscription cost for BHL was “about $350,000.”

Committee members asked whether the department would continue in‑person cross‑training and whether DMH had incorporated health‑equity commission recommendations calling for a shared training language across agencies. Hawes said DMH draws on health‑equity committees to inform its materials and expects to continue in‑person, scenario‑based cross training where appropriate.

Members also sought detail on what will happen to the contractors and training curricula currently delivering Team 2. DMH said it would not simply rebrand existing Team 2 content; instead, the department plans to adapt scenarios and materials to the broader statewide crisis continuum and, DMH testified, absorb the functions within the existing three‑person crisis team.

Committee members pressed DMH on costs and transition planning. DMH’s presentation said the department intends to absorb the training duties without an initial new appropriation and projected a small general‑fund savings (DMH estimated roughly $35,000 to the general fund), but members asked for clearer, itemized comparisons between contracting costs and in‑house personnel costs.

DMH also described operational coordination with 911 and 988. The department said it has worked with 911 operators to create a protocol for transferring appropriate 911 calls to 988 and that 988 and 211 systems have largely moved to a national unified platform; DMH said there is not yet a perfectly seamless handoff between 211 and 988 but that both systems know when to transfer calls. DMH emphasized that peer warm‑lines such as the Pathways warm line (run by people with lived experience) will remain available as an option for callers who prefer that support.

What happens next: Committee staff will continue to seek more detail on the cost comparison of contracting versus in‑house delivery, ownership or licensing of training curricula, and whether providers who currently deliver Team 2 work will have contracting opportunities after any transition. The committee paused the discussion to continue work on other budget items.