Page 5 - Marcus Alert News Today

With about three weeks left in the General Assembly session, hard bargaining remains on issues such as the budget, tax cuts and school choice.

Eighty-nine of Virginia’s 133 localities may not have to comply with a law passed in 2020 meant to improve the response to mental and behavioral health crises across the state.

The law demands every locality must have protocols in place for a diversion of certain 911 calls to crisis call centers, and for law enforcement to participate in the system by July 1, 2022. However, Senate Bill 361 would allow for localities across the state to opt out.

Virginia Medicaid members have access, starting December 1, 2021, to six new behavioral health services that strengthen crisis response, address a national emergency in children’s mental health care and provide new supports for individuals with developmental disabilities.

The system is named for Marcus-David Peters, who was fatally shot in 2018 by police after he charged an officer amid a behavioral health crisis.

Crisis intervention has a different look in Virginia’s largest city.

The Daily Newscast.

The Marcus Alert system launches Wednesday in in Richmond, Virginia Beach, Prince William County, Bristol and adjacent Washington County, and five counties in the northern Piedmont.

Virginia rolled out six new mental and behavioral health services for Medicaid members Wednesday, alongside a program that seeks to avoid involving law enforcement in mental health crises.

Mental health advocates say the 988 initiative has multiple potential benefits among them an easy-to-remember number that could help reduce stigma around needing to call for help.