Sound Behavioral Health is the largest mental health group in King County and one of the four largest in Washington.
The group is actively addressing the region’s growing issues around mental health and homelessness.
The organization employs mobile crisis teams to reach individuals in need across the community. It’s one of the newest features in the group’s 60-year history.
“We were founded very specifically in the 60s through JFK’s Community Mental Health Act to bring people out of the state institutions and back into the community,” President and CEO Katrina Eggner shared in a recent interview with KIRO 7.
The organization now supports individuals out in the world, recognizing that mental health concerns are no longer exclusively confined to institutions.
Sound Health serves everyone who inquires and meets its criteria for new patients, but it has focused on serving low-income patients and others in need who may not have regular access to behavioral health services.
Eggner added that the organization serves about 15,000 people throughout the year.
“So at any given time, we have about 10,000 people in care and serve about 15,000 people throughout the year at 16 different locations,” she told KIRO 7.
The landscape of mental health conversations has evolved significantly over the last decade.
“10 years ago, it was very hard for people to talk about in their families,” Eggner shared.
She also highlighted the impact of new factors.
“The drugs that people have access to, the impact of social media and kids is something we didn’t really think about 10 years ago, which is much different,” she told KIRO 7.
To meet these changing needs, Sound Health is integrated into King County’s mobile rapid response crisis teams, also known as Meerkat.
Crisis Services Director Joe Vela at Sound Behavioral Health was responsible for hiring numerous counselors to staff the mobile crisis centers, which are essentially vans and almost ambulances for mental health response. These teams respond to individuals experiencing a mental health crisis and assist them on location.
Vela explained to KIRO 7 that the mobile unit, “is big enough for us to take a person, let’s say, if they’ve got to go to a stabilization center, we can go to Kirkland’s Connection, or we can go to Crisis Solutions Center, which is in Seattle, or we can take them to a shelter or a tent city.”
You can read more about South Behavioral Health’s services by clicking here.