Missouri Department of Mental Health

EMS workers across the state are receiving training on how to give overdose victims a dose of buprenorphine, which manages cravings and withdrawal symptoms, after reviving them from an overdose with the overdose reversal drug naloxone.

The people imprisoned were supposed to receive rehabilitative mental health services that allow them to stand trial, but they have been found to languish in jails — often for months — without having been found guilty of any crime.

Missouri’s proposal to alter the way it sets rates for an at-home disability care program drew concern from the state’s federally-mandated disability-rights organization.

There are currently 253 people in Missouri jails waiting to be transferred to a state hospital for mental health treatment.

The state is moving forward to change how it calculates payment rates for its Self-Directed Supports program — a situation families say took them by surprise and that they fear could mean rates for caretakers are frozen at low levels or become unpredictable.

Legislation directs social services, mental health departments to collaborate on solutions to clients being boarded in medical and mental health facilities ‘without medical justification’

Staffing shortages at the state and local level translate to a lack of resources for hundreds of Missourians with developmental or behavioral disorders.

Missourians are seeing massive delays in receiving services, ranging from call center wait times to court-ordered mental treatment.

In July, Missouri officials debuted 988, an emergency mental health hotline that connects callers to dozens of organizations around the country based on the caller’s area code. The hotline’s overhaul means crisis response organizations need more workers and money to pay them. Advocates are concerned that the state has not committed to funding the hotline for the long term.

During the first month of a national mental health crisis line, calls to Missouri mental health centers have gone up 30%, state officials said. The three-digit 988 line routes all calls to suicide prevention hotline crisis centers.