988: The new mental health crisis number - with Dr. Margie Balfour

On July 16th, there's officially a new number to call (or TEXT!!) when you or a loved one is experiencing a mental health crisis. 988 - it’s like 911, but for anyone experiencing suicidal thoughts or substance abuse or any other type of mental health crisis. When you call 988, you’ll reach a real human, who is trained to provide support and connect you with the help you need.

Dr. Margie Balfour is a psychiatrist and the Chief of Quality and Clinical Innovation at Connections Health Solutions in Phoenix, Arizona. She has been working hard to advocate for this number and fight for implementation of 988.

I loved talking to her about what this new number means for us and how we can use it, the warning signs we can look for in ourselves and our loved ones who are struggling, and what she sees as the future of mental health care.

988 is a huge step, but there’s still so much more to be done. The 988 Implementation Act was introduced in Congress in March of 2022, but has not been passed yet. The goal is that when someone is in crisis, they have someone to call, someone to come, and somewhere to go if it’s needed. Of course, there is money needed to make people available to call, to show up, and to fund the places they might go. So the bill would provide federal funding and guidance for states to actually implement their 988 and crisis systems, including requiring all health insurance plants to cover crisis services, implementing a national suicide prevention awareness campaign, and providing funding for community-based crisis response centers.

Read about the 988 Implementation Act: https://bit.ly/988implementation

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Books recommended by Mentally Together guests: https://bookshop.org/lists/mentally-together