DAYTON, Ohio — Last month, Montgomery County Alcohol, Drug Addiction and Mental Health Services (ADAMHS) announced they could no longer offer the Crisis Now Hotline or operate the Mobile Crisis Response Team.

Due to financial reasons, the service provider, RI International, parted ways with the organization.

Over the past several days, ADAMHS has hosted a series of meetings to let community members weigh-in on crisis service options.

The Crisis Now hotline was receiving about 1,200 calls each month, and the mobile crisis team was going out about 100 times each month in 2023. Now, leaders are trying to figure out what’s next to make sure the community members get the help they need.

“Let’s keep having these conversations, let’s keep having the meetings…what’s going good?” Peer Support Specialist Jackie Allison said during the meeting.

Spectrum News 1 first met Allison last June, when she was working with the Mobile Crisis Response Team.

“We were able to go out to them, meet them where they were and provide them with support, whatever that looked like a their needs," she said. "So I really enjoyed that aspect of it."

Years ago, with plenty of help, Allison pulled herself out of a web of substance abuse and started giving back.

She had been working with people in crisis and on the streets with ADAMHS for about two years.

“So I was aware that things were happening, and it was disappointing because I think these services are very valid services, and they’re needed in the community and probably every community,” she said.

Up until recently, people could call the Crisis Now Hotline.

Now, when they call, they are transferred to the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. 

“We are hearing from the 988 providers that they’re having a significant uptick," said ADAMHS Executive Director Helen Jones-Kelley. "We’ve heard this over the last couple of weeks."

Parents and advocates like Michelle Campbell hope to see more collaboration between the agencies involved with care.

“We need to all get on board and begin to work together to help the mentally ill people," Campbell said. "We also need to be able to have access to their medical records without always signing a signed release."

ADAMHS leaders say the next step is to bring stakeholders together to review the information, themes and criteria from the meetings before putting together a request for proposal.

“We need to think about what we have at the table because it just can’t be the professionals, the providers, we have to bring some of those voices to the table as well because they’re so impacted,” said Jones-Kelley.

As for Allison, while the issue has many layers, she hopes community partners can come together.

“I think that was a piece that was missing with the previous provider, just having all of the community partners working together so that we can provide continuity of care, so that we’re able to provide services to as many people as possible,” she said.

It’s no secret that providing mental health services can be very expensive.

Along with bringing all the stakeholders together, ADAMHS is also in the process of applying and looking for more grants and will be using allocated state dollars for future services.