Asian Community Block

Gouverneur Hospital Mobile Crisis Team

Gouverneur Hospital Mobile Crisis Team has been in existence since 1968.   It  was the first program of it’s kind in New  York City.  It came about due to a dramatic shift in mentally ill demographics in the city.  There had been a concerted program to deinstitutionalize state hospitals during the 60’s,  and New York City was inundated with thousands of mentally ill without any support services.  Mobile crisis teams became the first line of intervention to engage and provide short term treatment for these patients.  Currently there are 23 Mobile Crisis teams that cover all boroughs in New York City.

The present day mobile crisis team at Gouverneur Hospital has evolved into a multidisciplinary team of mental health professionals that offers rapid responses to psychiatric crisis in the community. Currently we have a nurse and two full time social workers.  We also have access to psychiatrists through Gouverneur Hospital to provide discreet psychiatric interventions.  We serve both adults and children and have staff that speak Mandarin, Cantonese and Spanish.  Services are provided without regard to ability to pay or having  insurance. Our mission is to resolve or ameliorate psychiatric crisis in order to support optimum functioning in the community and to prevent hospitalization whenever possible.  However, there are situations where the individuals we see present immanent danger to themselves and the community and our professionals are authorized to bring these individuals to the hospital involuntarily.  We attempt to link the patients we see to existing community treatment and services.  Although we generally stay involved with individuals for no more than 60 days, sometimes there are complicated situations that require more visits to find appropriate services before we can  close the case.

Anyone can call mobile crisis to request our services.  It involves a  short interview on the phone with the  referral source.  At the time of referral we collect demographic information and the presenting problem.  We attempt to obtain as much information from the referral source as possible before making a visit.  Once we have decided to accept the case we schedule a home visit and will respond with a home visit within 48hrs for non-urgent cases and within 24hrs. for urgent ones.

Besides providing concrete traditional mobile crisis intervention services, we also conduct educational in-services to a variety of community agencies.  Topics that we have recently presented have been the following:

• Assessing Depression and Suicide Risk in the Elderly
• Psychiatric Disorders in Children
• Cultural Dynamics of Chinese Immigrants and Mental Illness
• Identifying and Reducing Stress

URL: www.nyc.gov/html/hhc/html/facilities/gouverneur.shtml

Contact Us
212-238-7259
Ed Nolan, RN
Mobile Crisis Unit