Solutions to Nation's Behavioral Health Crisis found in Peer Specialists, Public-Private Partnership

News provided by

Jun 05, 2023, 10:00 ET

GRANITE CITY, Ill., June 5, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Like lots of public transit systems, the St. Clair County, Illinois Transit District (SCCTD) had become the go-to option for many people facing some combination of homelessness and mental health or substance use disorders. Trains and transfer stations saw all-day riders, panhandling, and disruptive behavior.

For this population, calling law enforcement isn't always the right answer. A better, longer-term solution is to recognize and address the underlying factors that lead to behavioral health conditions.

Outreach specialists from Chestnut Health Systems talk about their work on Metro Transit - the public transit system in St. Louis, MO. Outreach workers use their lived experience to help others experiencing homelessness and/or substance use and mental health conditions. The aims are to improve safety on the system, reduce the number of all-day riders, and reduce disruptive behavior by connecting riders in need to shelter, food, health care, treatment, and other supports.

That is the aim of a partnership between SCCTD and Chestnut Health Systems^®. It began in spring 2021 and, six months later, expanded to include Metro Transit, the St. Louis region's public transportation system.

Four, two-person teams from Chestnut work 40 hours per week in each district. The project aims to:

Reduce loitering by "all-day" riders;
Address alcohol and drug use on the transit system;
Reduce panhandling, argumentativeness, sleeping, and other disruptive behaviors;
Provide early detection and intervention for riders who need services;
Improve visibility of Metro Transit safety, security, and rider satisfaction initiatives;
Improve communication between riders and security staff; and
Improve the overall rider experience.

Project staff members easily build rapport with riders, as the outreach specialists themselves are in recovery from substance use and/or mental health conditions. Some were hired for their roles after having served prison time. Nearly all will tell you that they gravitated toward this role as a way of paying forward the help they got when they were ready to accept it.

Metro Transit security personnel, who work alongside the Chestnut teams, learned through Mental Health First Aid training how to de-escalate situations and work with riders in a trauma-informed way.

The teams provide everything from water and healthy snacks to fentanyl testing strips and Narcan^®. They give backpacks filled with essentials to riders experiencing homelessness. They use a mobile app to log rider interactions and to find out which agencies can offer immediate help. Team members facilitate warm hand-offs to agencies providing housing, food, primary and behavioral health care, medication, transportation to service providers, and employment opportunities.

In its first two years, the SCCTD team logged nearly 2,600 engagement attempts, connecting 177 riders to services. The MetroLink team attempted more than 3,400 engagements in the project's first year, connecting more than 900 riders to services.

SOURCE Chestnut Health Systems