The County\u2019s Community Assessment and Transport Team, or CATT, has expanded into Berkeley. Through a hotline that can be reached 24\/7 via 911 or 988, its purpose is to respond to mental health and substance use crisis calls throughout Alameda County.\u00a0<\/p>\n
According to a statement from the city, CATT began service in Berkeley on Sept. 1 after the Specialized Care Unit, or SCU, pilot ended in the spring.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe key difference is that you can now call 911 or 988,\u201d said District 4 Councilmember Igor Tregub. \u201cIf the caller is experiencing an emergency or is reporting an emergency, the person on the other side … can call if it would be appropriate for CATT intervention.\u201d<\/p>\n
CATT is a collaboration between Bonita House, Alameda County Behavioral Health Department, Alameda County Emergency Medical Services and Falck Northern California Emergency Medical Services, according to the statement from the city.\u00a0<\/p>\n
CATT aims to \u201cdecrease unnecessary hospitalizations and police presence\u201d by using a \u201cunique crisis transport model that includes a Behavioral Health Clinician and Emergency Medical Technician responding to police requests in a low-profile vehicle,\u201d according to the Bonita House website.<\/p>\n
Tregub noted that another advantage of CATT over previous services such as SCU is the \u201cguaranteed 30-minute response time\u201d from anywhere in the county, including Berkeley.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI think CATT provides a really important need for someone who might be facing a crisis,\u201d Tregub said. \u201cWe have heard in the past that it would take a long time for the crisis unit to arrive. \u2026 Thirty minutes is not immediate but it is more expeditious than what some of my constituents experienced in the past.\u201d<\/p>\n
The county still provides services such as the Mobile Crisis Team, according to the Alameda County Behavioral Health Department website, which is available five days a week.<\/p>\n
The Mobile Crisis Team responds to mental health and substance use crisis calls, and is supported by two licensed clinicians. The CATT program will expand these services for community members.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI look forward to this program succeeding and I am excited that Berkeley is going to be working with the county and Bonita House on this program,\u201d Tregub said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The County\u2019s Community Assessment and Transport Team, or CATT, has expanded into Berkeley. Through a hotline that can…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":16264,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[389,14330,14331,14329,14327,14326,14328,14332,143,145,144,9756],"class_list":["post-16263","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oakland","tag-alameda-county","tag-alameda-county-behavioral-health-department","tag-alameda-county-emergency-medical-services-and-falck-northern-california-emergency-medical-services","tag-bonita-house","tag-catt","tag-countys-community-assessment-and-transport","tag-igor-tregub","tag-mobile-crisis-team","tag-oakland","tag-oakland-headlines","tag-oakland-news","tag-september"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16263","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16263"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16263\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16264"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16263"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16263"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16263"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}