The Baldwin County Commission has approved continued funding for AltaPointe Health’s Assisted Outpatient Treatment (AOT) / Crisis Response Team. The one-year agreement in the amount of $384,687 is to be supplemented by Opioid Funds for cases with a documented correlation to opioid addiction.

Over the past two years, funding for the Baldwin County AOT team has supported 3,635 interactions with participants enrolled in the court-ordered outpatient program, delivering intensive services and monitoring for individuals with frequent law enforcement encounters, repeated hospitalizations, and chronic, severe mental health and substance use disorders. Eighty-three percent of those served have a diagnosed substance use disorder.

The program has demonstrated significant impact in recidivism and days spent in jail for the participants and has resulted in reduction on the number of hospitalizations:

• In the 12 months prior to enrollment, participants spent 3,341 days in psychiatric hospitals. Since being managed by the AOT team, that number has dropped to 609 days.

• Arrests have decreased from 87 in the year prior to AOT enrollment to just 23 since enrollment.

• The team has responded to 2,520 calls involving justice-involved individuals, including both in-person and remote co-responses with the Baldwin County Sheriff’s Office and municipal law enforcement agencies.