It was encouraging to hear support and affirmation for mental heath services from our state delegation during a legislators update roundtable July 25 in Limestone County. Especially promising was Rep. Parker Moore’s (R-Dist. 4) commitment to make mental health issues a priority during the next year.

That’s especially true this month: With the results from just one sector — the one-year anniversary of the National Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, aka 988, in July — it’s apparent that support is going to be sorely needed.

The good news is that 988 is working. This federally mandated lifeline for those experiencing a mental health crisis, especially in rural areas, provides real-time, immediate assistance from mental health professionals who can talk with those in need, offer crisis resources and send help to, or direct an individual to their nearest crisis center for help. Since its inception in July 2022, it’s been a success.

During the last year, 988 has received about 4 million calls, chats and texts for help nationwide — a more than 30 percent increase above the 10-digit crisis number previously used by the hotline, which is now still active but not promoted.

In Alabama, since July 16, 2022, the 988 National Suicide and Crisis Lifeline has received more than 45,000 contacts — each call, chat or text representing a real person experiencing a mental health crisis who received real-time and, in many cases, life-saving, counseling from mental health professionals.

And according to the Alabama Department of Mental Health, the call volume from month-to-month continues to increase, as does the response rates to those calls.

The rationale behind why this 24/7 service is so successful is simple: When someone in our state in a mental health crisis calls 988, they get connected immediately to a professional from Alabama — calls are answered from centers in Mobile, Birmingham, Huntsville and, by the end of the year, Dothan — who will talk and offer advice about resources within an average response time of 35 seconds. And rather than talking to a law agency officer or first responder, such as with 911, they get the specific help they need for the crisis they are experiencing.

Commenting on the year anniversary of the 988 launch, Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra described the service as a “godsend,” and he is correct.

But the system is not perfect, and there remain challenges and concerns to the sustainability of the service.

One of those is funding. Unlike the automatic charge we receive on our phone bills to fund the federally mandated 911 universal emergency number, current legislation has not been successful in similarly funding 988.

Another challenge, and one related to funding and, to an extent, controversy, is building geolocation services into the calls. Currently, 988 doesn’t use geolocation, which means call centers don’t get immediate information about a caller’s whereabouts. Geo-routing, which will identify a caller’s region to assist centers with the closest resources, is in the works, but the lack of exact locations can frustrate getting help from local mental health services.

A third area identified for improvement is the lack of awareness of the service within the population of older adults. Americans aged 50-64 have the lowest percentage, at about 11 percent, of knowledge of 988 among all age groups.

There is much work to do in Alabama and the nation in addressing mental health needs. It would be unwise to consider 988 a panacea for those needs, but it is one tool with proven effectiveness that must be advanced and sustained.

Couple this with work in other areas of mental health services, and we again applaud Moore and our legislators as they continue to advance resources for those in mental health need.