Inside Emergence Health Network’s new mobile crisis units

Emergence Health Network launched their new mobile crisis units this month, which is like a clinic on wheels — something they say is the first of its kind in El Paso.

EHN launched three mobile crisis units — two for adults and one for kids.

The main difference is a play station and some toys for kids to decompress and calm down and then proceed with treatment like a tele-health session.

"This is something that really allows us to kind of be there and support them right then and there in this situation, as opposed to adding more stressful tasks, to get them to our crisis clinic," said Fabian Marquez, who's part of their Youth Crisis Outreach Team. "We want to be able to support them, we want to be able to do whatever is needed to really help them, to really diminish and stabilize that crisis."

It’s a modern concept aiming to support families and clients by giving them more access to help if they can't make it to their Crisis and Emergency Clinic.

The unit is built with complete privacy — including surveillance cameras with a 360 view so the client feels safe.

When it arrives to a person’s home or nearby area, they can do a tele-health session to meet with a therapist.

"It's not in El Paso thing, right? It's something that's kind of statewide and nationwide," said Marquez. "So, I think that the benefit of this is just the fact that it's so new. It's innovative. It's something that's going to hopefully make it a little bit more efficient and to make our services that much better."

This crisis unit is triggered through their hotline or 988, and the service is free of charge.