People experiencing a mental health crisis in the U.S. now have a new number to dial: 988. Like 911, a caller can dial the three digits from anywhere in the country to be connected to services. But unlike 911, people who call or text 988 will be connected directly to a trained mental health provider. Wendy Linebrink-Allison, program manager of the New Mexico Crisis and Access Line, spoke with KUNM about how the new number works for New Mexicans. She says when a person dials 988, they’re connected to the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline.
WENDY LINEBRINK-ALLISON: From there, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline routes the caller to the local crisis center that that area code originated from.
KUNM: So, your existing number that people are more familiar with will remain in effect and it's a way for somebody who doesn't have a 505 or 575 area code to contact you all directly?
LINEBRINK-ALLISON: At this time, you can choose to self-select the New Mexico Crisis and Access Line at 855-NM-CRISIS. Nationally, they're working with the FCC in order to implement geolocation, such as what the 911 centers have. At that point, the phone calls would be routed based on where you're residing at. But until then, we have this backup in place.
KUNM: You all have seen an uptick in calls since the pandemic. Are you anticipating 988 to increase your call volume even further?
LINEBRINK-ALLISON: We do anticipate that the call volume will increase. We've answered 893 calls so far this month. In the month of June, we answered 1,160 calls for the entire month. So, we anticipate that the volume will double what it's been in historical months.
KUNM: With that level of volume, what happens if someone dials 988 and your lines are busy?
LINEBRINK-ALLISON: Well, our line should never be busy. We might not be able to pick up the phone in the allocated time that the hold queue for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline has designated, which is three minutes. And so, if you are in our hold queue for more than three minutes, then the call will be pulled back and routed to Agora Crisis Center to support, which is also a local crisis center here in our community. And if Agora can't answer it within three minutes, then it'll go to a national backup center. So, the line will never be busy, you'll never be met with a voicemail, you'll always get routed to a person. It just might get bounced around to different call centers if there is higher-than-anticipated call volume happening within our communities.
KUNM: Should 988 now be considered an alternative to calling 911 for those who are experiencing a mental health crisis, or who come upon someone who's experiencing a crisis?
LINEBRINK-ALLISON: As I understand that, that is the intended purpose — to make it similar enough to 911 that people can remember it, but also make it easy enough so that people can distinguish the differences. Over the years, people have used 911 for that mental health response. And that's not necessarily the intended purpose of that originally, but that's what it's become. And so, 988 will allow for people to reach out for their mental health concerns so they're getting to the right place at the right time. The difference between 911 and 988 is that our whole goal is to try to help you during the call, whereas 911's whole goal is to try to understand who needs to come to you for support. And sometimes all somebody needs is a phone call.
KUNM: Is there an in-person response mechanism attached to 988?
LINEBRINK-ALLISON: Currently, we reach out to emergency services to support you, to make sure that you're safe and those around you are safe. The state of New Mexico is currently developing behavioral health-led mobile crisis teams, so that we can step down that emergency-level response and get the mobile team — that's behavioral health-led — out to you. And we'll be those dispatchers on behalf of the state of New Mexico.
KUNM: Now, I do know that the city of Albuquerque has a mobile crisis team up and running. On the city's website, they instruct callers to dial 911 and request this mobile crisis team. Is there any talk of getting them connected to 988?
LINEBRINK-ALLISON: I can tell you that those conversations are being had at the state level. But at this time, those are led through the 911 Center and it's up to the state and the city to come to an agreement on if that would continue in that way, or if they would like to look at integrating into the behavioral health crisis mobile team response platform.
