Bringing Substance Use and Mental Health Treatment on the Road

By Albany County Executive Daniel P. McCoy

When it comes to mental health and substance abuse programs and services, we can’t look to the past for solutions. Looking back shows us what we should not repeat, because those outdated policies have been a clear and resounding failure in terms of what we are seeing today. Furthermore, the events of the last 26 months have only made that conclusion even more obvious, as the isolation and financial turmoil caused by the pandemic and economic shutdown has only made these matters much worse.

Consider that in Albany County alone there were at least 110 opioid overdose deaths in 2021. Compare that to the 99 deaths in 2020 and the 62 deaths in all of 2019. That is a 77% spike in annual overdose deaths between 2021 and 2019, and I know these alarming statistics are not unique to Albany County.

These horrible tragedies are occurring at far greater rates across the state and the country. In 2021, more than 7,500 individuals received some form of service provided by our Albany County Mental Health Department during over 40,600 unique interactions. We know the public need for assistance is there, so it’s our responsibility to be creative when it comes to how we are helping people struggling with addiction or mental health challenges.

The old way of thinking in government was to wait for people to come to us to get assistance, and while it’s important to have headquarters and convenient satellite offices with doors wide open, we also need to find ways to bring services to people directly. Which is why Albany County has developed two important and innovative programs that bring mental health and substance abuse services on the road.

The first is the Mobile Outreach Treatment Overdose Response (MOTOR) Program. The Albany County Department of Mental Health streamlined its community outreach and response efforts in April of last year. A team of addiction professionals and peers is available to provide support, linkage, and treatment to all parts of Albany County.

Additionally, in a unique partnership with local law enforcement, MOTOR reaches out to overdose survivors with targeted interventions designed to provide rapid links to treatment.

Currently, MOTOR is operating in the Towns of Guilderland and Colonie, with expansion planned for Albany, Cohoes, and Watervliet.

Another initiative, which was launched in June of 2021, is the Albany County Crisis Officials Responding and Diverting (ACCORD) Program, a collaborative effort with the Albany County Legislature and County Sheriff’s Office to provide an alternative crisis response. Operating in the rural Towns of Berne, Knox and Rensselaerville, ACCORD pairs social workers from our Mobile Crisis Team with paramedics from the Sheriff’s EMS Division to respond to non-violent situations where a law enforcement presence is not required.

The key point to the program is having trained mental health and medical professionals respond to calls involving non-violent individuals experiencing a mental health crisis instead of police.

This program diffuses and de-escalates situations, and pairs the right people together, while preserving public safety resources that allow officers to be available to respond to police matters. In the first six months, our pilot program responded to 240 calls from 100 separate individuals, and I’m looking forward to it expanding further in the coming months to ensure even more people experiencing a mental health The initial success of ACCORD has allowed us to bring in hundreds of thousands of dollars in state funding, along with knowledgeable researchers from the University at Albany School of Public Health and School of Social Welfare to ensure the program’s continuation and expansion.

While the events of the last two plus years have been tragic and have likely done permanent damage to the mental well-being of countless individuals, it has also forced us to go back to the drawing board, get creative and find innovative solutions that we will have ready when the next catastrophe strikes. MOTOR and ACCORD are two new but promising initiatives that will allow us to change the outcomes for the better of many of those individuals and their families who are struggling, and I’m hopeful that they can serve as models for others.