Crisis Response
Crisis Response services provide rapid responses to individuals in the community who may be experiencing a behavioral health emergency.
Emergency Services provides rapid telephone and in-person crisis assessment, intervention, and consultation 24-hours, seven days a week. Emergency Services also provides screening for psychiatric hospitalization and crisis stabilization.
Our Services
Adult Mobile Crisis Response (MCR) provides a rapid response, assessment, and early intervention to residents and visitors in the City of Virginia Beach, City of Norfolk, and the Eastern Shore of Virginia when they experience a behavioral health crisis.
The services will assist individuals experiencing a crisis or escalating emotional/behavioral symptoms which have impacted their ability to function in their family, living situation, community, school, or work environment.
MRC Clinicians will meet individuals in an environment where they are comfortable to facilitate relief and resolution of the crisis, through an array of services offering prevention of acute exacerbation of symptoms, treatment, linkage, referrals, and community collaboration.
Adult MCR services are dispatched by calling the Regional Hotline at 988 or (757) 656-7755.
Crisis services are available through a regional collaborative. If your child is experiencing a mental health or substance use crisis, simply call 9-8-8. A telephone assessment to determine the level of need will be provided free of charge, and if needed, a team of crisis clinicians can be dispatched to your location to assist with the crisis.
Crisis Intervention Teams are designed to reduce negative interactions between individuals with serious mental illness and law enforcement officers, including incidents of violence, and to divert individuals from punitive incarceration to appropriate medical treatment.
CITs are formed through the collaboration of mental health providers, law enforcement agencies, family members of individuals with mental illnesses, and the individuals themselves.
This coalition develops plans to address systems issues, including the best way to transfer someone from law enforcement custody to mental health treatment; and crisis intervention situations, including teaching law enforcement officers how to recognize and de-escalate a psychiatric crisis to prevent injury or death.
Since its development in 1988 in Memphis, CIT has been implemented by hundreds of communities across the country and statewide in several states. Studies show that CIT trained officers identify individuals who need psychiatric care and are 25% more likely to transport an individual to a psychiatric treatment facility than other officers.
CIT training also reduces officer stigma and prejudice toward people with mental illness. Research also shows that police-based diversions in general and CIT in particular, significantly reduce arrests of people with serious mental illness. Individuals diverted through CIT and other programs receive more counseling, medication and other forms of treatment than individuals who are not diverted.
CIT is a community partnership that allows individuals with mental illnesses' to be redirected from the Judicial System to the Health Care System. It is a more educated, understandable and safer approach to mental health crisis events.
It provides law enforcement-based crisis training for officers assisting residents with mental illness. Officers are part of a specialized team which can respond to a mental health crisis at any time. CIT is now used in over 400 law enforcement agencies worldwide, including Australia, Israel, Canada, and Sweden.