Mobile Crisis Outreach Team

The Mobile Crisis Outreach Team (MCOT) is a resource designed to bring behavioral health crisis services into the community for face-to-face assessments, intervention, follow-up, and relapse prevention services.

Paired with the State’s 24-Hour Crisis & Substance Use Helpline, the MCOT team responds to a person’s location. MCOTs are similar to EMTs in terms of being a group of trained professionals dispatched to an emergency. The MCOT’s members are specially trained crisis responders and licensed mental health clinicians who provide on-call and onsite treatment to individuals in a state of behavioral crisis.

The State defines a Behavioral Health Crisis as any “intense behavioral, emotional, or psychiatric situation perceived to be a crisis by the individual experiencing the crisis, family, or others who closely observe the individual. The crisis may include a mental health condition that manifests itself by symptoms of sufficient severity that a prudent layperson who possesses an average knowledge of mental health issues could reasonably expect the absence of immediate intervention to result in:

a) Serious jeopardy to the individual’s health or well-being; or
b) a danger to others; or
c) significantly reduced levels of functioning in primary activities of daily living.”

Central to the mission of the MCOT is the goal of providing the most moderate level of care needed for stabilization without drawing attention to the individual. MCOTs divert individuals in crisis from emergency rooms and jails through onsite treatment and clinical evaluations. In cases where transport is deemed necessary, the MCOT works with local law enforcement or other approved agencies to transport the individual to an inpatient center. In all cases, follow-up is conducted with the individual by a clinician and case-manager working to ensure continuation of care for the individual.