New NACo/NACBHDD Resource on Rural Crisis

Check out the new brief from NACo and NACBHDD entitled“Messaging to Support a Behavioral Health Continuum of Care: Rural and Frontier County Leaders.” This is the third installment in a series of six briefs examining the essential role counties play in providing support for individuals with behavioral health conditions and experiencing crises.

Rural and frontier county leaders oversee the administration of services in counties with populations of 50,000 or fewer people. While only approximately 15 percent of the nation’s population lives in the 2,050 counties deemed ‘non-metropolitan’ or rural, these jurisdictions account for over 72 percent of the nation’s total land area.¹ These counties face a distinct set of challenges compared to their urban counterparts; less densely populated jurisdictions’ resources must serve diverse populations spread out across large distances. Rural and frontier county leaders are finding innovative ways to provide services and adapt resources to their communities’ unique needs by utilizing clinical crisis response teams, expanding certified community behavioral health clinics (CCBHCs) and leveraging law enforcement partnerships with supplemental training.

To read the full brief follow this link.