Executive Summary:
Thanks to a generous grant from the Morgan Stanley Foundation’s Children’s Mental Health Innovation Awards, Trek Medics is offering one year of free access to, and use of, its Beacon Crisis Dispatch platform to Youth Mobile Crisis Response Teams (MCRTs) in order to help improve the coordination of rapid crisis care for youth and young adults experiencing mental health crises.
Eligibility Criteria:
Successful awardees will be able to meet the following criteria:
- Have active mobile crisis response teams currently providing crisis care to youth and young adults
- Be non-profit or governmental agencies
- Have an existing call-handling system to receive requests for assistance
- Have desktop computers and mobile devices (e.g., Android/iOS smartphones and/or tablets)
- Be able to provide evidence demonstrating experience delivering mental health crisis care to youth and young adults
- Be able to receive necessary approvals to implement and launch the Beacon platform within three months of proposal acceptance
Background:
Since 2014, Trek Medics has been supporting a wide range of emergency and crisis response agencies through its Beacon Crisis Dispatch platform. Over the past several years, we’ve become increasingly involved with mobile crisis response teams across the U.S. Today, Beacon is being used by MCRTs in 10 states, averaging more nearly 5,000 incidents being dispatched to MCRTs through Beacon every month.
In April 2025, we were honored to receive a Children’s Mental Health Innovation Award from the Morgan Stanley Foundation. As part of this award, we were able to help Centerstone (TN) expand use of our Beacon platform to their youth MCRTs in Florida and Illinois. With the successful launch of those programs, we’re now looking to partner with additional youth MCRTs.
Grant Purpose:
To improve the communication and coordination of youth MCRTs through the Beacon Crisis Dispatch platform.
Grant Objectives:
- Improve communication between Dispatchers and Response Teams
- Improve efficiency and accuracy of response operations
- Reduce response times
- Increase youth diversion rates from unnecessary hospitalization and incarceration
- Collect comprehensive response data for MCRT managers and community leaders to inform continuing quality improvement
Grant Activities: Successful grantees will be expected to carry out the following activities:
- Successfully complete Beacon onboarding training
- Successfully complete live Beacon simulations
- Use the technology to respond to mental health crises
- Participate in ongoing quality improvement efforts including regular check-ins with Trek Medics support staff
Application Timeline:
- Applications are accepted on a rolling basis
- Applications are reviewed and candidates interviewed
- Successful awardees will be notified
- Grant terms will be discussed and agreed to
How to Apply
Please send an email to [email protected] with the header “Youth MCRT Grant Application” and include the following information
- Agency Name and Location
- Contact Information
- Description of your Youth MCRT program, including:
- Number of Teams/Responders
- Number of Call-Takers/Dispatchers
- Volume of Crisis Responses per week/month (if your program provides response services to both adults and youth, please indicate the breakdown)
- Any additional information that may be helpful in evaluating the application
About Trek Medics:
Trek Medics International is a 501(c)(3)-registered non-profit technology organization dedicated to improving access to emergency and crisis care for at-risk and vulnerable populations through innovative mobile technologies.
Founded on the belief that communication is the most important tool during emergencies and crises, Trek Medics envisions a world where all communities have easy access to a diversity of responders whenever they’re needed, and is committed to providing the technology needed to effectively coordinate emergency services and crisis response organizations.
This program has been supported by a generous grant from the Morgan Stanley Foundation.
