Mobile Mental Health Response Teams Now Able to Provide Follow Up Care

LOS ANGELES — Mobile teams of LA County mental health professionals will soon be able to provide in-person follow-up care in the days and weeks after a person experiences a mental health crisis. The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors April 9 voted unanimously to approve a motion authored by Supervisor Janice Hahn accepting a $2.2 million grant from the state and allowing the Department of Mental Health to use the new funding to add new mobile response teams that will provide follow-up care and referral care. 

In recent years, the Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health has massively expanded the number of mental health crisis mobile response teams operating countywide. There are now 60 teams made up of trained unarmed mental health professionals that operate 24/7 to directly respond to people experiencing mental health crises.

But until now, there were not enough mobile response teams to provide follow-up care in the days, weeks, and months after the immediate response to the mental health crisis. On March 19, 2024, the State of California awarded the LA County Department of Mental Health an additional $2,200,000. The Department of Mental Health will use these additional funds to expand the mobile crisis response services to include teams dedicated to conducting referral and follow-up care for clients receiving crisis services.

Dedicated referral and follow up teams will be assigned to each of the county’s eight service planning areas with each team comprised of one medical case worker and one community health worker to expand mobile crisis response services and related infrastructure in the county.