Mobile Crisis Teams
Mobile crisis teams, in many countries around the world, provide in-home treatment to acutely disturbed clients as a versatile and effective alternative to hospital care. Originally developed in the 1950s and ‘60s in Britain and in Kentucky and Colorado in the USA, mobile, home-treatment teams were refined and made widely available in Australia. More recently, mobile crisis teams have been established in Birmingham and Islington in the UK, and in Connecticut and elsewhere in the US.
There is an indistinct boundary between mobile crisis teams that are set up to prevent hospitalization by providing immediate care in the home, and assertive community treatment teams which aim to prevent relapse and readmission to hospital for people who have already demonstrated a pattern of frequent hospital admission. Mobile crisis teams provide a service, rapidly and in the home, that is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Staff spend time flexibly with the client and his or her family and friends, several times a day, if needed, and offer the same psychiatric evaluation and medical treatment, around the clock, that would be expected in a hospital, tackling, in addition, the social issues that led to the crisis. The treatment team can administer medication and evaluate its effects and can offer practical help in solving problems. Team members provide counseling and support to caregivers, staying in touch until the crisis is resolved and linking the client to ongoing care. Assertive community treatment (ACT) teams offer similar services – the difference between the two approaches is related to timing and caseload. ACT teams have an established caseload of high-risk clients and cannot pick up new clients at a moment’s notice; mobile crisis teams stabilize acutely disturbed clients and transfer their care to other outpatient modalities, leaving the team available to respond immediately to new clients in crisis.
The principles of social intervention inherent in all these alternatives to hospital treatment include the advantages of small, domestic, non-coercive settings, the avoidance of institutional care, and the involvement of the local community in fostering social integration.
Mobile crisis teams provide a service, rapidly and in the home, that is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
