Clackamas County officials mark Mental Health Awareness Month, spotlight crisis services as local suicide rate remains high

County health officials on May 21 asked residents and elected leaders to treat mental health as a community responsibility and to use local crisis resources as they marked May as Mental Health Awareness Month. Mary Rumbaugh, director of Health, Housing & Human Services (H3S), and Karen Kern, behavioral health division director, told the Clackamas County Board of Commissioners that Oregon ranks near the bottom of states on several mental-health measures and that the county's suicide rate is higher than both state and national averages.

The presentation outlined a continuum of county services aimed at reducing stigma and increasing timely help. Kern highlighted the county's crisis line and mobile crisis response team, which she said has expanded reach significantly: "calls for mobile crisis support have jumped 67% since '20–'23," and the county is operating an urgent walk-in clinic and a crisis stabilization center that opened in December 2025. Kern said mobile teams are able to de-escalate many people in the community, decreasing reliance on hospitals and law enforcement.

The county also provides postvention support after deaths by suicide, Gallie Murray, the public health division's suicide prevention coordinator, told the board. Murray said the county offered support following 42 deaths in 2025 and provided multiple counseling sessions to families that requested services. "What we've been doing historically has not worked," Murray said, arguing that more intentional funding and different approaches are needed.

Commissioners pressed for measurable outcomes. Commissioner Savas asked whether the county can measure how many of the people represented in the county's suicide statistics had prior contact with county services and what the success rate of those touch points was. Murray and Kern said there is limited cross-system data to answer that definitively: clinical care settings track follow-up and pathways for people in care, and the crisis stabilization center is beginning to produce data that the county expects to report in future updates.

Kern urged simple actions residents can take when someone is struggling: ask "How are you?" and, if there are signs of serious risk, help them call 988 or the local crisis line. She also described training available to community groups, schools and law enforcement (for example, Mental Health First Aid and QPR) to help nonclinical community members intervene early.

The presentation did not seek action from the board; Kern and Murray said they will return with additional performance data, including results tied to the crisis stabilization center, at a later date.