Building scalable crisis response systems — so help in a crisis isn’t a matter of luck.
For decades, what happened when someone experienced a behavioral health crisis depended largely on luck. Emergency rooms were often the only door, jails became de facto psychiatric facilities, and 9-1-1 operators had few alternatives to dispatching law enforcement. The launch of 9-8-8 created promise but without coordinated local systems, people kept falling through the cracks.
Peg’s launched Clear Pathways to build sustainable, scalable behavioral health emergency response across Ohio. The initiative works with five Ohio communities to establish governance structures connecting 9-8-8 and 9-1-1 personnel, mobile crisis teams, and behavioral health providers. Peg’s also joined four national funders to launch BHERi — the Behavioral Health Emergency Response Initiative — extending this work to states representing roughly a fifth of the U.S. population.
Crisis response is no longer a county-by-county scramble. Lessons from Ohio — featured on the national 988 Crisis Jam — are informing crisis system design across the country, and reliance on jails and emergency rooms is beginning to give way to person-centered alternatives.
"No one should have to navigate a maze to get help in a moment of crisis. That's why Clear Pathways exists — to build scalable, sustainable crisis response systems."Rick Kellar, President & CEO, Peg's Foundation
